This Christmas has to be the worst ever for me. My fiance just left me, saying he can’t understand why I want to make something of my life, rather than sitting around drinking like all his friends. So now, I had to spend $400 I didn’t have to fly home, because I moved to PA with him to be closer to his family.
Gee, I guess I’m still bitter.
About three years ago my (then) girlfriend decides to invite her parents and sister over for Christmas dinner at my place. The Back Story: Niether she, nor her sister, has ever, ever gotten along well with her parents, both of whom are best defined (via Google) as:
so·ci·o·path·ic: n A personality disorder defined by an individual’s inability to live by the rules, customs, and laws of the society in which they live, and showing a lack of anxiety or guilt about their behavior toward others.
Bingo!
But that year had been marred by the prolonged death of her much-beloved Grandmother, which, for a brief time, brought the family closer.
It was trouble almost from the moment her folks walked in the door. We said our ‘hello’s’, I took coats and we made small-talk about the cold. Everything seemed to be going well as I escorted them into my family room, where her father takes a prolonged look around my house and casually says:
“Wow. Usually the only guys with houses this done-up are faggots.”
Okaaaaay… I should explain. My house was professionally decorated by a friend, and I collect art. Some of which I can imagine was a bit foreign to a drill-press operator from Detroit. I did my best to chuckle, and said something like “we took down the beer can pyramid just for you”. But then he walks up to my Nechita canvas, pokes it a few times as though it’s a side of beef and murmurs:
“The fuck kinda’ drugs you kids doing these days? Are you on drugs?”
That’s about when Mom helpfully pipes in:
“Oh Frank, leave them alone. They’re just trying to act cultured or something”.
My girlfriend turned red, her sister turned white. I retreat to the kitchen, gulping down a whole glass of cab on the way.
Her parents ability to push all the wrong buttons are uncanny. My cooking is important me, and my years as a sous chef a source of pride. So of course Mom meanders in and starts fucking with me.
“your ovens too hot”.
“No, no, no!! I’m just searing the roast”.
“You’ll burn it to a crisp”!
“Relax! It’ll be fantastic!”
“Frank doesn’t like over-cooked food”.
(Under breath) “Perhaps I should blanch him”.
“Do you have Schilling powdered gravy”?
“Nope. But I’ve got this great caramel roux going, and I’m gonna’ add the fond to it and…”
“Frank doesn’t eat beef without Schilling gravy”!
(Between clenched teeth) “Trust me. It’ll be great!”
Meanwhile, while Mom is fucking with me and my mis un place, Frank is rearranging my furniture so he can watch ESPN. And when I say rearranging the furniture, I mean rearranging the furniture in a deranged attempt to fashion a Lay-Z-Boy recliner out of an Ikea love seat, my coffee table and all the cushions off my sofa. My living room looks like a fight has taken place. Girlfriend is dazed, and near tears. Sister has (understandibly) polished off an entire bottle-and-a-half of wine.
Frank: (scowling at bottle of Sam Adams) “You got Coors”?
I will spare you the sordid details of dinner, lest this get shuttled straight to The Pit. Highlights included:
“You got gravy”?
“Thank God WWII happened on my generations shift. Men these days got no balls”.
“Well, if abortion was legal when I was a girl we probably wouldn’t have had you Linda”.
You want ONE “Ruined Christmas” story? JUST ONE???
Can’t be done. Christmas just sucks. Period.
Christmas was pretty much permanently ruined for me the year my grandmother died - on December 23. She’d really been the only thing holding most of my extended family together, it turned out. When three aunts show up at your grandmother’s house on Christmas eve so they can divvy up grandma’s stuff less than 24 hours after she’s died, that pretty much does it for anything like “Christmas Spirit.”
I don’t even bother to hang a wreath anymore and I really, really look forward to January.
I just re-read my post.
Geez, I guess this really touched a nerve that I hadn’t thought about before.
Hmm.
Best. Post. EVAR
One year, when he was about five, my father sneaked downstairs super early and tried to plug in the tree lights-and somehow managed to shock himself and smack his head on the tree platform.
I’d say last year was pretty bad. My aunt is very cheap and stingy and there was almost no food out (despite the fact that my grandfather bought an economy box of mixed nuts-she only served two almost empty bowls and apple chips), forgot to buy pop, yelled at my grandfather-who was still recovering from two strokes for spilling coffee on her carpet, went on and on about her ugly cheap calenders she made (no holidays on them, no personal dates, no pictures, nothing), and to top it off I had to listen to my cousins and uncles spew their racist garbage. And we had to watch Christmas Vacation AGAIN!!! I swear, I hate that movie now. I’ve seen it so many times. Doesn’t it get bloody old???
I told my parents if she ever has Christmas again, I’d volunteer at soup kitchen. Or just sit home and watch the cats play. Anything has to be better than that crap.
Christmas 1979 (I was 11 years old), my buhsni stepdad had been in a foul mood all day - he couldn’t stand me and the fact that my mum had spent money buying me presents pissed him off.
He spent most of the day drinking and shouting at one of us, broke a few of my gifts and just acted like the bully he was.
8:00pm, he decided that I should be in bed. My mum disagreed. So he hit her. She hit him back.
That’s when the fun started.
He grabbed her by the throat and threw her through the glass coffee table, picked her back up, threw her on the sofa and started choking her. I jumped on his back to try and pull him off, but he grabbed me by my hair, punched me and threw me across the room.
I ran to the toolshed and back and whacked the shithead with a pickaxe handle. He grunted, got off my mum, came over to me and punched me in the face. Then he turned around to continue trying to kill my mum.
So, I smacked him in the head with the pickaxe handle.
My mum had recovered by this point and took a few swings at him. The coward actually turned and ran out of the lounge, headed for the front door - chased by me and my mum.
Halfway down the path, the wanker slipped on a patch of ice and fell arse over tit.
That Christmas was ruined. My mum had bruises around her neck and some small cuts from the coffee table. I had a bloody nose, split lip and a black eye.
But I still think it was worth it to see that piece o’shit slipping and sliding down the road as he ran away like the coward he is.
Were his kidneys gone? Because the Chirstmas my family tried that, it was a huge disaster.
Just kidding. We’re Jewish.
I’m so ashamed of myself. I forgot completely that my brother Mark died on December 20, 1990. That was, without a doubt, the dreariest Christmas ever at my house.
Sorry about that, bud.
Man, I feel so lucky. I love my family and vice versa (all of my family, including the cousins I see once a year, maybe, and all of my uncles and aunts). There are no skellies in our closets, we don’t serve large quantities of alchahol.
So the worst Christmas?
… well, one year my Dad slipped and cracked a rig or something, so we went home from my Grandparent’s house on Christmas Eve…
So this is why there are the circulating stories that holiday times are stressful times.
Well, I think the OP was probably asking about incidents when melodramatic relatives say something small “ruined Christmas,” but I am finding this thread pretty interesting anyway.
First of all Loup, this Christmas might suck but you are better off without that guy. Next Christmas you’ll be laughing about him and thankful that he isn’t in your life.
Our worst Christmas would have to be three years ago. My son was 8 months old and so it was our first Christmas as a family-with-kids and it felt special to me. Well, my husband caught that horrible flu that was going around. He was absolutely bedridden–I’ve never seen him so sick. I was getting whipped trying to finish the shopping and such while having no help with the baby. We were supposed to fly home to Nebraska before Christmas but I didn’t see how he could possibly go. But I didn’t want to lose money on all our tickets. So we made plans for me to go with the baby and leave him home, alone and sick. That was pretty upsetting. The day of the trip, however, he rallied. He took about 40 advil and somehow managed to make it. We got to my parents house and he went straight to bed in my room and stayed there for most of our stay. My parents gave up their room so I could sleep there (so nobody would disturb husband).
Christmas Eve the baby starts getting really fussy. It totally interrupted our celebration and he kept getting worse. It turned out HE caught it. And he was miserable the rest of our stay. He never slept because he was too miserable, crying and fussing constantly. My parents spent endless hours pushing him in his stroller and taking him for drives. It was all we did, pretty much. At night he didn’t sleep either for more than 45 minutes at a stretch. By the end of our stay, I was exhausted and…guess what… I started catching the same flu. I barely survived the trip home; luckily my husband was turning the corner and could do more.
I stayed sick for SEVEN weeks after we got home.
It was not a good Christmas, but it was a reminder of how great my parents are. They never complained, and I am pretty sure they rolled that stroller around for 700 miles within their house while their grandson wailed and fussed.
Cranky was correct that I was initially looking for melodramatic stories where x-mas wasn’t really ruined, however, I didn’t make that clear, and this is a good thread nonetheless.
My biological paternal “grandmother” (if you could call her that) had an undiagnosed mental breakdown on Christmas Eve two years ago. She proceeded to verbally berate my mother and I. We suggested cancelling the Christmas celebration and she said that “she was a great actress and could fool anybody” so no, we aren’t cancelling the celebration.
<cut to Christmas Eve night>
She arrives and Mom and I immediately start drinking copious amounts of alcohol to numb our brains and tongues. . . . We all act like everything is f*cking fabulous, then she goes home. Well, this was the first year my fiance and I had owned a home, so he and I were having everyone over for Christmas Day Dinner at our home. She called my dad and told him that she’s too mentally ill to come. Well, that was the final straw.
She continued to fax and call us for weeks afterwards with some of the most vitriolic words you can imagine. I faxed my psychiatrist some of her “work” and he advised me (off the record) to sell my company and move out of state. She’s a f*cking psychotic narcissist and my psychiatrist was worried for my physical being.
I, luckily, dodged the bullet and did not have to have armed guards at my wedding, since she was laid up in the hospital at the time.
I have not spoken to her since, nor will I ever again.
Well, then I’ll toss mine in.
I can’t remember exactly what year it was – I think I might have been about 12-13 at the time. Somewhere in those early teen years – I had only lived with my dad and stepmonster for a short time. Maybe a year or two. Still adjusting to the very non-child-friendly atmosphere of their house. (We were expected to behave like full-grown adults by age 11-12.)
We were all buzzing around the house, preparing for all the family and guests to arrive. Stepmonster has five kids – all grown by then, dad has two teenagers, and all the spouses, grandkids, grandparents, etc. were about to arrive – about 35-40 people IIRC. Some had shown up already. Phone rings. I hear my stepmom screaming from the kitchen.
Turns out her parents (stepmom’s) had gone to pick up her sister and found sister dead. Nobody ever really told me how/why, but looking back, I suspect insulin shock, diabetic coma, something along those lines. Although she was clinically depressed and talk of possible suicide was floating around the Christmas dinner table. Nice, huh?
I must have been closer to 12 because I remember being first pissed off that we didn’t get up and open presents first thing. (As I had always done as a “kid.”) First we had to have breakfast. Then we had to start cooking and cleaning for guests to arrive. So we were already into the afternoon by the time the fated phone call came. I remember being young enough to selfishly think, “Great. Now we probably won’t open presents at all today.” (I hadn’t lived there long enough yet to know that opening presents that my stepmonster got us is generally NOT a treat. See related threads on bad gifts.)
I wasn’t closely related to this woman, didn’t really know her, but respected that this was traumatic for my stepmonster’s family – I didn’t really expect them to be sensitive to my child-needs to open presents. I think we eventually got around to opening presents around 8-9 pm, very somberly and sniffly, of course.
Yet Christmas still sucked, as did most of them, after that year… because talk of Leah’s death still comes up on Christmas day. We have to relive that whole event every single year.
Which is why I stay here in Florida and call Ohio on holidays. They pass the phone around and after a while, I get to go back to my relatively peaceful life with no drama.
On Christmas night six years ago, my father had a massive heart attack and nearly died. Tests showed he had 6 blockages of 98% or more in the arteries feeding his heart, and he’d been having “mini-attacks” for months prior to that, damaging the muscle fiber. And he just kept having them, so frequently that he wasn’t really stable enough for surgery, even when they finally did it. There’s just something about hearing someone tell your mother, “When I take your husband’s heart to cut it, it may just crumble in my hands like cottage cheese,” that really takes the jingle out of your bells.
BTW, Dad’s fine. He went home 4 days post-op and back to the construction site 6 months after that.
Well, there was this one Christmas when I asked for the self-titled Portishead cd and I got their first album, “Dummy”. Talk about a ruined holiday. 
I guess I’ve been lucky!
Two “slightly ruined” ones come to mind:
The last year I lived at home (18 years old), some older single folks I worked with were having a party Christmas Eve. The 3 of them lived together, and had no family here. Another friend I worked with who was my age (and still ived at home) also went. We got smashed, drinking until about 5 am Christmas morning before passing out. I woke up around noon, got home about 1:00 and my parents were a bit upset, but we do the big family thing on Christmas Eve, which I’d been to before going to the party. My friend’s parent were EXTREMELY mad at him, as he “ruined Christmas” for them.
The other one was a couple years later - for some reason late Christmas Eve night I decide to teach my parents how to play quarters with whiskey shots. Luckily, I was able to find out where “Santa” had stashed the presents for my siblings as mom and dad crawled to bed, or Christmas may have been “ruined”. It wasn’t the best anyway, what with my mild hangover, and mom and dad’s major ones, but it was okay.
My dog Mike died on Xmas day 1996. I’d come back to visit my parents, and he spent one last night sleeping on my bed with me. He went into seizures at 3 a.m. Xmas morning and I spent the morning looking for a vet clinic that was open. Ended up having to shell out the cash for an emergency/holiday visit and euthanasia. I’d spent all my money on presents, so I had to put it all on my credit card and get a reminder of that day a month later…
He’d been old and creaky for some time and hadn’t slept on my bed in about 3 years. I sincerely believe that he knew his time was coming and waited for me to come home to see him one last time. And then made the awesome effort (for his old bones) to climb up on the bed with me.
It was an awful Xmas, and it remains a bittersweet memory, but I’m so happy that he waited for me.
Man, my stories are piddling in comparison.
For six or seven years running, someone in my immediate family would get “The Christmas Bug.” Said individual would spend the day in bed sick as a dog with something horrible, emerging only to puke, have diarrhea, take 30 minute showers in an effort to dislode phlegm, something…
Well, there was the time my mother had to make two trips to the emergency room on Christmas day…
The first time was because of my brother, I don’t really remember what happened to him. Really terrible strept throat, I think.
Then she had to take me in later for a sudden conjunctivitis emergency, irritated by taking a snowball directly to the eyeball. Stupid cousins…