Tried-and-true holiday traditions certainly have their merit, but there’s something quite special, magical even, about discovering personal rituals that commemorate one’s unique life. In my household, for instance, nothing quite rings in the Christmas spirit like sipping my partner’s delicious coquito and putting up a cardboard gingerbread house for my cats.
The beauty of creating customized holiday traditions is that they can be as festive, sentimental, or as silly as you want them to be. And you never know how one small moment can become the catalyst for a tradition that sparks joy year after year.
For Jess Lydon, that tradition is baking expletive-laden pies for Thanksgiving. (This is your profanity warning—the images below contain swear words.)
“What started as a means to get a rise out of my Grammy has snowballed into a weird family tradition. I bake one pie a year,” Lydon shared to the subreddit r/Baking.
For 2023, Lydon chose the word “D—wad,” an homage to her favorite word to hurl in a fit of road rage, topped onto a decadent rosette-filled apple pie.
“Asshat,” apparently her second favorite word, was used in 2016.
Lydon also added a litany of pies from former years— “F—wit,” “Penis,”“B—-,” “F— Off”…you get the idea.
Gotta say, watching Lydon’s baking skills progress over the years (thanks in large part to using the correct tools, she notes) to something worthy of a Paul Hollywood handshake on “British Bake-off” makes this even more enjoyable.
Folks on Reddit seemed to enjoy it too. If for nothing else, to add their own profanity-themed jokes.
“A culinary and visual delight! This is the best thing I’ve seen all day,” one person wrote.
Meanwhile, another quipped, “Your growth in pastry work is quite touching, c—,” to which Lydon replied, “Thank you, t—. I’m pretty proud of the progress. And grateful to my family for putting up with The Early Years. The first few pies were rough looking.”
Others had suggestions for next year’s pies, including “prick,” “nimrod,” “bollocks,” and “bastard.” All solid choices.
As Lydon explained to TODAY.com, the tradition came about from trying to get a “giggle” out of her “sweet little Japanese” grandma. After seeing that first pie, which read “F— Off,” Lydon recalled that her grandmother gave a lighthearted “double edged compliment” by saying, “Oh my, well, I can see that you’ve tried really hard. And you put a lot of effort into it.”
Sadly, Lydon’s grandmother passed away a few years after the first pie, but the cheeky tradition lived on. And in its own quirky way, it brings Lydon’s family together.
As for her Reddit popularity, Lydon told TODAY.com that she’s thrilled others shared her love of vulgar pastry making, and is happy to see that some folks might start their own version of the tradition.
“If we can make a few more people laugh because of rude words looking pretty, then I’m all for it.”
Whether it’s curse-word pies, funny sweaters, DIY decorations, or something else altogether, maybe this is a sign to create your own unique holiday tradition, however big or small.