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The holidays are full of cheer and fun times with family, with laughing together and eating good food, and a bunch of other stuff I honestly wish we could get together to do more often, and not just a handful of times throughout the year.
These 14 families add an extra layer of fun by always being on the lookout for a way to totally prank their parents or their kids, their siblings or their grandma – and honestly, if any of these happened to me, I’d just have to tip my hat in amazement!
14. Why would you want to wake your kids up early, though.
My friend’s parents came bursting into all the kids rooms at around 3:00 am, screaming that a hurricane was coming and they were to get up and move all their furniture onto the beds.
They kids ran around piling furniture onto their beds for about an hour and a half. Finally, they ran into their parents room to tell them they were finished.
Their parents were soundly sleeping, and upon the screams of the kids, simply sat up and said, “April fools.”
13. It’s always the big mystery box.
There was a HUGE box under the Christmas tree one year. My sister and I were so anxious to open it. Our parents finally wake up and we’re crawling around the tree and sizing up presents like lions chasing after gazelles.
My father says “wait, don’t open anything! I have to go to the bathroom real quick!”
We’re sitting there patiently, waiting for the sound of him washing his hands so we know game time is upon us… what’s taking so long? We hear the sound of him brushing his teeth. Maaaaan! OK, fine. He’ll be done soon, right? We hear the water running again in the sink. NOW he’s done! Yes! NO! The water shuts off and then we hear the water in the tub running. He runs a shower, taking his sweet time… I’d say he delayed our Christmas present opening by about 30-minutes with that morning routine, but when you’re younger it feels like hours.
We were seriously trolled that morning, but the Sega Genesis and Sonic we got made up for it.
12. He never spent those $20 bills.
One Christmas, my mother bought my cousin the Asteroids game for the Atari. We had an Atari as well and really wanted the asteroids game too. We found out our cousin already had the game in his expansive collection and told my parents of this.
At this point in our lives we didn’t believe in Santa any more so my parents would wrap gifts as they were bought and torture us by leaving them under the tree, days and weeks before xmas.
This Christmas we had an Atari asteroids present wrapped beneath the tree. During the days before xmas we were all sitting around near the tree trying to guess what was in the presents. All 3 kids were like, “this is Asteroids” pointing to our new game.
My dad was like “How do you know? “It’s not Asteroids.” He got all three of us to say, “Yes it is! I’ll bet you $20 it is!” Come Christmas, we open our Asteroids to find a picture frame box with a piece of wood cut to be the size of the box. Taped to the wood were 3 $20 bills. Which we all had to give to my dad for losing the bet.
Asteroids was wrapped and hidden under the kitchen sink.
11. Who brought the cabbage?
Not really related, but the best prank I know of…
At a wedding there is usually a table where all the guests put their gifts. My cousin and his wife were invited to a wedding. They took along a nice gift. Wrapped in gift wrap with a card attached.
They also wrapped a cabbage in nice gift wrap, but it had no card.
They walked in to the reception each carrying a gift and left the two gifts on the table. It’s now many years later and I don’t think they have ever confessed that they were the ones that gave them the cabbage.
10. Ashamed, yet proud.
Christmas in the 1980’s; Christmas eve for my 10 year old twin brother and I was the usual unbearable excitement wanting to get the night out of the way before we could see what father christmas had brought with him. This particular christmas eve, we heard the sound of sleigh bells outside our (shared bedroom) window around midnight.
Rushing to the window we swept the curtain to one side, only to see nothing. Disappointed but excited, we went back to bed. 5 minutes later, a light appeared rushing across the window behind the curtains with the same sleigh bells sound.
Far too excited to move, we saw the light slow down, the sleigh bells slow to a standstill and the sound of hoofs landing on the extension roof outside our window. By this stage we were convinced that Santa had arrived on his sleigh literally metres from us.
Turns out it was my dad with a bell, a torch and two halves of a coconut. Completely had us for years. He told us when we were 18.
Great thing is I did the same thing to my kids and they believed it so much that when their school friends told them that Father Christmas didn’t exist, they argued for hours based on the false evidence they had witnessed. Eventually I had to break the news to them that it was a prank. Felt oddly ashamed and proud at the same time.
9. An expert at playing the fool.
Two Thanksgivings ago, my dad got an alert on his iPhone that said “Congratulations: You have been selected to beta test the new iPhone 5. Check your AppleID email address for more information.” Probably a scam, right? But when he checked his email, lo and behold, he had an email in his inbox from Apple with details about when and how to pick up the phone from the local Apple Store.
My little brother has always been the family tech guy. The alert and the email were both part of a prank he was trying to play to make my dad look like a fool in front of a crowded Apple store on Black Friday. My brother is technically savvy enough that everything from the alert (sent from the FindMyPhone app) and the email (a doctored version of an old iTunes receipt email with some fancy concept art added in) looked relatively believable. He even included a doctored Gizmodo post that “verified” rumors of an iPhone 5 beta test. But he failed to account for the fact that my dad had a lifetime of pranking experience under his belt.
My dad played the role of the fool expertly. He obnoxiously bragged about how he was going to get the iPhone 5 before anybody else all throughout Thanksgiving dinner. About how he was going to be a beta tester while my brother, a loyal Apple enthusiast, wasn’t going to get shit. About how it couldn’t be a scam because the Gizmodo post verified it.
That night, he “called” Apple support to verify that he could pick up the phone in person the next day. And by called, I mean dialed and then clicked Cancel before holding the phone up to his ear. His acting throughout the entire “conversation” was worthy of a Tony.
He yelled for my brother. “Quick! Come here! You won’t believe what’s happening. It turns out the iPhone thing is a scam. I’m on hold with Apple right now. They’re transferring me to their legal department. They said that they want to investigate and bring suit against the scammer.”
My brother is getting noticeably flustered. “DAD, DON’T GIVE THEM ANYTHING!’
Meanwhile, my dad continues his performance. “Yes sir. No sir. Yes sir, I can send you all the information I have. No sir, it’s a family computer. Yes, other people might have access to it. Sure. Sure. Yes, my sons are in town. Uh huh.”
My 21 year old brother is turning red. He’s on the verge of tears. “DAD STOP STOP DAD STOP HANG UP THE PHONE!”
“Thanks you very much. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help you catch this guy.”
My dad turns to my brother. “I just sent Apple the email. It’s in their hands now.”
My brother freaks out until my dad is able to calm him down enough to tell him it was a joke.
And that’s why you don’t prank your parents.
8. Not as funny as he’d hoped.
I’ve got a prank story, but it didn’t exactly turn out in full giggles like it should have. I still thought it was humorous though.
It was Christmas time two years ago, and my father and my step-mother were preparing a relatively big meal for about seven or eight people. My dad works fifty plus hours a week, and I heavily attend school and work on the side, so both of us are pretty tired, but happy to be relaxing during the break. My step-mother steps out and tells my father that the ham will be done cooking in about an hour, and she should be home somewhere around then, but to take it out if she doesn’t get home in time. I can see the wheels in my father’s head spinning.
He lets the ham cook, and then proceeds to take the ham and hide it out in the dining room, leaving the oven on to pretend it’s still cooking. My dad proceeds to pretend to be asleep on the couch as my step-mother gets home and she goes and tries to take the ham out. Needless to say she started freaking out, yelling, “Jeff! Where on Earth is the ham?! Did you take it out?!” and such. After a couple of seconds of silent giggling he “wakes up” and walks her to the dining room to show her the ham…
… That the dog had been chomping on for about ten minutes. That ham was completely chewed up/eaten by our American Fox Hound. We went and had Chinese food for Christmas dinner instead.
7. Glorious…for some.
Wasn’t a parent, but my Uncle. Christmas day some year in the 90s. We had a rule that I couldn’t wake my mum before 7am to open presents etc. One year, my uncle put all the clocks forward 3 hours. I woke up super early, as usual, see it’s 7am, wake up my uncle first, who had been out clubbing the night before and had returned with a few whistles.
I tried to wake her, she refused to get up, said it was too early. Cue 20 minutes of me and my uncle running around blowing whistles and shouting wildly.
It was glorious.
6. How sweet. And unsanitary.
Every year since I can remember, on thanksgiving day, my mother wakes me up by dangling the uncooked turkey over my head.
I am not joking.
5. The original stuff sounds delicious.
On April Fool’s day one year, my mom doctored an entire meal to look like other kinds of foods. She mixed vanilla ice cream and some yellow food coloring to make “mashed potatoes,” molded green beans out of taffy, and made some kind of incredibly convincing “lasagna” out of cheesecake bits and red frosting in a casserole dish.
We were thrilled, but then she brought out an actual meal. 🙁
4. At least they thought it was funny.
Ever since I can remember, my parents have let my sister and I open one present on Christmas Eve.
One year, there were two GIANT boxes under the tree. I think I was 11 and my sister was 10, and these things were up to our chests. We could only imagine what was inside! We also knew that those boxes would be the ones we open Christmas Eve and we could not wait.
When the time came for my sister and I to open our one present each, my mom threw us a curveball. She said we could open one present each, but she got to pick which presents. To our surprise, she picks the two big boxes. Now, you have to understand that Christmas Eve used to be a big deal in my house. We would have a ton of family members over (my dad was 1 of 9, so you get the idea).
Everyone watched as my sister and I tore through the wrapping paper and ripped open the boxes. First thing we saw was crumpled up newspaper, covering whatever was inside. We threw it everywhere, anxious to see what glorious present resided in such a giant box. More newspaper. It seemed to go on forever.
Once we got to the bottom of the box, we stopped. My sister and I looked at each other in silence, confused as to why there was a brick duct taped to the bottom of the box and nothing else, while my mom pissed herself laughing in the kitchen for 15 minutes.
3. That would for sure be disturbing…
I saw a video somewhere of somebody who stuffed a Cornish hen into a turkey, then convinced the other people in the room that the turkey must have been pregnant.
It was pretty funny.
2. There went that parental trust.
My mom was a pretty big health nut when my brother and I were younger, so any sort of sugary treat was always a huge deal. It was probably a weekend so we were allowed desert after dinner and my mom decides to let us have ice cream.
My brother was playing video games so my mom calls me into the kitchen to help scoop it out. Awesomeness. I spoon out three servings for us and then get ready to put on some Cool Whhipp, when she suggests we put sour cream on my brothers’ ice cream.
As a younger brother who was constantly picked on and bullied, it brought me great joy to see him take a huge bite of “Cool Whhipp” and proceed to cry hysterically afterwards.
I’m sure he lost a little bit of trust in my mother, but I still smile at that 25 years later. 🙂
1. That’s just mean.
I was in 3rd grade and I didn’t know the true meaning of April Fools day. It started off like any other morning, but as I was grabbing my backpack my mom tells me I won’t need it today because she is taking me to Six Flags instead of school.
Biggest disappointment of my life.
I’m not a good prankster, which means I’m totally jealous of these people’s abilities – and their ability to take a joke.
Is your family into pranks? If so, tell us about one of your best ones down in the comments!
