My parents had some, luckilly I was 1 and 2 at the time. They all revolved around psychotic relatives (my aunt and my mom’s mother). Neither of which are invited over for the holidays.
Except once.
My grandmother came from christmas.
I was 14 or 15 at the time, more than old enough to know how much this would suck.
We have a very basic plan. We all bought, nice considerate gifts all fairly inexpensive (my grandmother bitches if you spend more than 5$ on someone) gifts, and the the REAL gifts we would give each other. We made some NASTY ass fruit cake and got all prepped to go sing carols (IE we saw a movie).
Basically it was the old bait and switch. We had christmas around New Years. That sucked, watching my grandmother get drunk for christmas dinner and spout racist and insane things. Apparently my parents used to beat me regularly, and badly enough to send me to the hospital on a weekly basis. Up until I was 9. Funny how I don’t remember any of that…
Oh and there’s the whole getting dumped by the first girl I fell in love with christmas eve then having her try to make up the next day enough so I could sneak her out of her house so she could be with the guy she was sleeping with.
This isnt mine,but my mom n dads,
First of all, my Naunny was kinda bitchy/bossy (I loved her but even my dad will admit that his mom was a bitch)
Anyway, a few years after mom n dad were married (and naunny spent a few years trying to break them up), they spent Christmas with naunny and pop-pop, and naunny got into a fight with my mom and threw the christmas tree into the swimming pool, every year since then my dad will talk about when naunny threw the christmas tree in the pool.
Well, this isn’t as bad as some of the other stories but:
The Christmas that I asked my ex-husband to leave. We knew he was going, but decided to wait until Christmas and our oldest son’s early-January birthday was over. It was hard watching my six y.o. and my 3-y.o. having a great Christmas, knowing that their dad was soon to go. Er, we knew he was going, they didn’t.
I could not put up with the man anymore, yet I was so sad for my babies that day. Still hurts to think of it and it was many years ago.
After reading these stories, I’m glad that other than my immediate family, our nearest reletives resided over a half a dozen states away when I was a kid. Especially the southwestern branch of the clan.
One Christmas when I was in my mid-teens, a rat chewed through the insulation of the main line into the breaker box of our house, causing a major short. The lights went out and there was a huge flash from the area of the kitchen. It scared the bejeezus out of all of us, except one sister, who had been napping on her bed next to the wall that held the breaker box. A few moments after, she came out of her room wondering what was going on. The fire, which flared up, then went out quickly, had burned a small hole through that wall.
Another Christmas, probably a year or two before this, my Dad and my sister, the one born on Christmas, went out to find some ice cream for her party. Two hours later, they finally came back. It turned out that as my Dad was backing out of the driveway, the neighbor kid’s dog ran over to say “hi.” He got behind the car and my Dad ran over him. They got the nighbor kid and took the dog to the vet but they couldn’t do anything for him and he had to be put to sleep. I know my Dad felt awful though the kid’s family was understanding. It put a damper on that Chrismas(/birthday).
The year my son gave me chicken pox. Christmas Day was a major victory when I had enough energy to take a shower and put on clean jammies so I wouldn’t smell when my folks came over. It isn’t much compared to the rest of these stories, but adult chicken pox is awful.
Still hurts to think of it and it was many years ago.