Share your lamest, most disappointing holiday memories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

This one is actually pretty damn funny… NOW!

Halloween in the 80’s. Me and a couple of guys are out doing the late teen shenanigans (nothing serious), but I did have my BB gun on me, just in case.

We are walking down the road when we hear something in the woods. Somebody calls out “hey pussies” and the next thing you know, pain in my arm, leg, etc. I realized they were shooting at us. So I pull out my gun, cock it, load a single pellet and take aim…

I hear from the woods “HE’S GOTTA GUN!” and see a white shirt fleeing through the woods. I lead just right and fire. CRACK! I hear “HOLY SHIT! OWWWW!” and we take off never to see the bastards again…

We get to my house and one of the guys wants to borrow the gun from me on his way home, just in case. I said “OK”.

The next day, I get a call - the guy who borrowed my gun had shot out a neighbors window and the police were called. They were bringing the gun back to my house.

Only thing was, my parents had no idea I had one and would have killed me if they even knew.

So I get all sick feeling, waiting on the dreaded doorbell. I’m up in my room sweating bullets. “Ding dong”. I hear my dad talking to the other guys dad and my dad saying “Yes, that’s his”. I’m upstairs so I can’t see what’s going on, but I’m thinking WTF? Then I hear the other dad saying “No, you don’t understand”. That’s when I realized I had given him the gun in my bag and my dad had just seen the bag, not what was inside until the other dad pulled it out.

“GET DOWN HERE!!!”

Here goes - I try to be a badass and stand my ground. He asks “Where did you get it?” I tell him “I can’t tell you”. This goes on for a few mins, until he is about to take a swing at me so I finally blurt out the friend who I bought it from.

He then says “Get dressed - we’re going to {BB Gun Original Owner’s House}.”

We arrive and my other friend is coming down the stairs - all I can say is “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”. His dad finds out what happened and we leave…

So this is how the story played out…

The guy who shot out the window and got the police called on him? He gets grounded for ONE DAY!

Me, the middle man? I get grounded for 9 weeks…

{BB Gun Original Owner}? He gets grounded for 6 months, his dad comes THIS CLOSE to taking a sledgehammer to all of his stereo equipment, but decided at the last minute not to, but still took it all away for 6 months.

Oh, and the kicker??? Guess who Mr. White Shirt in the woods was? It was {BB Gun Original Owner}! I ended up shooting him in the SIDE OF THE HEAD with what was originally his own gun!

102

You just reminded me, we had one like this too. Some folks here might remember, though most probably don’t, that back in May of 2000, a huge fire swept through northern New Mexico, causing the entire city of Los Alamos to be evacuated. We lived about 40 miles away and safely down the hill, but had friends that lived there, so we played host to one couple, plus their dog and bird, for a week or so until the danger passed.

So in November of that year, there was a huge snowfall on the night before Thanksgiving. Of course, the power went out for our whole neighborhood just before we started cooking. That left us with a bunch of thawed, ready-to-cook food, and no way to prepare it. So, we called up the couple we’d hosted during the fire and asked if we could invade them. They said, “Sure, great!” and off we went, packing the turkey in fresh snow to keep it safe. Probably a good thing we had people to share it with, too, because my parents used to raise MONSTER turkeys; I think that year’s was about a 27-pounder.

103

This isn’t even on the same scale of a lot of the entries here but here goes…

Thanksgiving 2007. We lost our beloved bulldog to bone cancer about 5 days prior to Thanksgiving, so we had that hanging over us all day plus my senile grandmother kept asking every 5 seconds “Where’s that white dog? I want to see her, where’s that dog?”

My husband always deep fries our turkey. That year we had a bizarrely cold wind/rain storm pop up right around dinner time after a warm and lovely afternoon. During dinner we heard this weird CRASH from outside. Hubby had left the deep fryer out on the deck to cool off, and during this crazy wind storm our huge metal gazebo tipped over on its side on the deck, knocked over the still boiling hot deep fryer, which hit our smoker which had been used to smoke a ham earlier in the day. There are coals and pieces of wood from the smoker on fire all over and the boiling oil has covered the deck. My dad and husband are trying to right the gazebo and somehow tether it to the deck in the freezing cold, my mom is trying to figure out how to put out the coal/wood fires on the deck, all of this going on without anyone falling and killing themselves on the boiling oil. My aunt turns on the hose to put out the coals, the gazebo is temporarily secured, and the backyard is off limits until the next morning when we’re feeling right-headed enough to deal with it.

After that commotion we decide it’s time for dessert and maybe a little spiked coffee. Dessert gets set out, and I begin to fill up the coffee pot with water. Something distracts me and the glass coffee pot slips out of my hand and shatters all over the wood floor. My last words were “EVERYONE. GET. OUT.” as I poured a large glass of red wine.

Fast forward to the next morning. My husband goes out to the backyard to survey the damage. It’s worse than we thought. Auntie forgot to turn the hose off, so the back part of our yard is a pseudo-ice skating rink and the hose split from the cold (it dipped well below freezing that night).

HOWEVER! Some valuable lessons were learned here. Now the turkey is deep fried on the concrete out in front of the garage. The ham is still smoked on the deck, but hubby invested in a huge heat-proof pad to put underneath it. The gazebo is anchored to the deck so securely I doubt a tornado could budge it. My aunt is no longer allowed to touch the outside water spigot.

104

Growing up, I had a monumentally extended family. Parents divorced, and remarried when I was young, all of their grandparents are alive, everyone within a 100 mile radius.

And all of them demanded christmas time. They called it Christmas. My brothers and I, after the novelty of being children wore off, call it running the gauntlet.

Our festivities begin the day before christmas, where we gather for lunch at the maternal grandparents, and that whole family. From there, we venture forth to moms house, where we spend the night. Then up bright and early, and to step fathers parents for a brief hello, then off to dads. Then to fraternal grandparents. Then to fraternal grandfathers sisters, then to step mothers parents. Total drive time: roughly 8 hours.

I hate it. Every year. Its nice to see family. I love that I’m 32 and all of my grandparents are alive and well. I appreciate that they hold the christmases at slightly oddball times so that we can make it. But its too much. Its not fun, relaxing, or pleasant. Its rush here, there, everywhere.
For much the same reason, thanksgiving was a pain. We never went more than one place, ofc, but every one of those people had a thanksgiving as well, and there would always be a guilt trip if we were going to a thanksgiving on the other side of the family. Since my brothers and I are all adults, we’ve staged a coup, and my brother and I go to our eldest brothers house for a nice, relaxing dinner. There are still guilt trips, but we’ve become immune.
Ok… That aside… Worst christmas ever. I was in the navy… This would have been my second christmas while in. The first, I got off, and had a rather fun time. This time, no dice. I had just got to my ship, didn’t really know anyone, still living on the ship. I didn’t get christmas leave(half the crew gets xmas, half new years). Even worse, its christmas day, and its my duty day, stuck on the ship for 24 hours. Now, all things considered, it was an easy day, the cooks served up a pretty damned nice meal, and things were pretty lax, but I’m still On The Ship for 24 hours, no questions.

So, inevitably, I’m kind of depressed. I probably should have called home and said hi, but I didn’t really want to get passed off to 50 different relatives on the phone, and when you’re depressed, you really don’t want to talk to anyone anyway.

The day passes without incident, things pick up at work, I eventually make some calls home. A week after christmas, I get a letter in the mail from my step mom, telling me I’m the worst kind of son, that dad was extremely depressed on christmas because i didn’t call, even though you, and I quote, ‘Called that bitch of a mother’(I had called her the night before).

Well, you can imagine my response to that. If you can’t, I will just say it was less than cordial. I ended up not speaking to her except in monosyllables for a year or two, which, looking back, was rather childish, but damn was she out of line.

So… Not so much a bad christmas, but the aftermath of it wasn’t too pleasant.

One more holiday gone wrong. This is not a normally celebrated holiday, but anyone in the navy, or who have been deployed somewhere, knows this one.

The deployment is over! We’re heading home! Yes! We’ve been out to sea for 170 days, in the persian gulf for the last 2 months, but tonight, oooohhh, tonight we head back to Norfolk! We get to leave this stifling hot gulf water! We’re even going to hit up Cape Town on our way back. :smiley:

Yes, tonight, the 10th of September, 2001, is a fine day indeed to be leaving the Persian Gulf and heading home for some R&R!

*CutterJohn wakes up the morning of the 11th, feeling the shake of a flank bell and seeing more people packed into the tv room than even the best Porn Nights.

Whats going on?

105

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I think we should all pitch in and make this the WORST Thanksgiving EVER!
We need to get some more stories. I was feeling pretty good wallowing in my misery, and sharing the bad holiday memories.
I’m culling my brain right now, but until I can remember some bad ones, surely somebody can keep the thread alive…

Best wishes,
hh

106

This will be my first Thanksgiving without my wife (we’re divorcing) - not bad by other people’s standards, but will be a weird one for me.

107

These are pretty sad, I’ve never had much luck on holidays. But let me say in advance that these things happened a long time ago, and I’ve come to terms with the various issues they have caused in my life.

When I was 5, I was raped. I only post that because when I was 7 or so, my half-brothers that I never knew about came to live with us. They were 13 and 14. At Christmas, my brother and I slept in the living room in sleeping bags. (Don’t know why.) And that’s when he began molesting me. I still remember lying there, looking at the tree, all brightly lit, while he molested me. It ties in to the rape because it really cemented some odd ideas about sex in my brain while I was very young.

My parents divorced when I was 10, and when I was 13 I went to my Dad’s for the Christmas holiday. He didn’t speak to me the whole time, except on Christmas day. That’s the day he told me to “never darken his doorstep again.” (How dramatic, huh?) And he didn’t speak to me again until I was 22 or so! (I also had my first period that visit. Geez.)

Now this one was the worst. The week before Halloween, 1995, my best friend had a stroke. Might not sound so bad, but I cannot even begin to tell you what this woman meant to me. She was the first person in my life to like me AND love me. At that point, the ONLY one. She was my cousin, so she understood my family dynamics. We became close when we were 17 or so. I would have died for her. Literally. But I didn’t get that option, and she passed away on Halloween, 1995. Brings tears to my eyes even now.

Oh, geez. Christmas 98. Did you all know that I have the power to cancel Christmas? Well, apparently I do. In the fall of that year, my mom was getting ready to retire. She was worried about money, and making it on a fixed income. I was doing really well financially, and was getting tired of the materialism of the holiday. I put out the idea of just buying for the kids going forward, and my mom thought that was a great idea.

Not too long after that I noticed that my mom cut any phone conversations short. Then phone conversations started dropping off. Finally, shortly before Christmas, I came right out and asked her what the hell was wrong?? She started bawling and said that since I canceled Christmas, she just could barely stand to talk to me!

Cancel Christmas? What the hell? I had visions of myself as the Grinch, stealing trees from Whoville. Hokay.

Come to find out, when she approached my younger sister with the “only buy for the kids” idea, my sister had a fit and that’s where the canceling Christmas came from!! Oh good Lord. :rolleyes: Fine. You guys want to do Christmas, that’s fine.

So my mom, my sister and her husband show up on Christmas day. They were in the door, opened gifts, and out the door in 25 minutes. My mom and my sister spent the whole visit whispering to each other, about what, I don’t know. When they left, I laid on my bed and cried my eyes out. :frowning:

Then, this past Thanksgiving, I had an issue with my mom. I moved to Tennessee from Michigan a little over 3 years ago. My mom, sister and her husband moved to Northern Michigan a few months before that. So last fall, my mom and I were talking on the phone and realized that we hadn’t seen each other in over 3 years!

So Thanksgiving rolls around and as it happens, both of my daughters were going to be in Michigan. So I thought I’d go up, too, even though I’d be super tight for time due to work. So I called my mom to see if we could meet halfway between her house and our hometown. We could meet at a friend of her’s house, or at a restaurant… would probably be the last time my girls, my mom and I would ever all be together again. First time seeing my mom in over 3 years.

She said no. That she had just been downstate the week before and her knees still hurt from it. And she didn’t see the point in “wasting 50 or 60 dollars at a restaurant.” :eek:

Wow. I couldn’t believe it. Seriously. I got off the phone and explored my feelings. And you know what? I was MAD. Instead of hurt, like my mom and my sister have always made me feel, I was mad as hell!

But it made me finally let go. Took me over 30 years, but I finally finally stopped trying to get my mom to love me. It was a huge weight off my shoulders, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt better. So it turned out to be a good thing.

This is getting to be more of a book than a post, so I’ll stop now. But, yes, I’ve had some suck-ass holidays! :smiley:

108

I have a feeling this thread might get resurrected next Friday, when some of the family-battle veterans come back from the frontlines with fresh tales of woe and dysfunction.

Me? I’m spending the holidays with my in-laws. (I know, I know - sounds like hell to some people!) They may be a little nuts, but it’s a nice kind of nuts. At least they’re *polite *about being crazy. :slight_smile: Plus, they drink! Holidays with my parents sucked bad enough, but having to get through them stone cold sober just put the extra shit sprinkles on the steaming pile of shit.

109

Christmas was always a big holiday for my family growing up.

Well, Mom died 10 days before Christmas 2004. In her hospital room, when we all still thought / hoped she’d turn around and make it home for a few more months, she was planning Christmas dinner and asking people to do various stuff. 3 days later she was gone.

So that was my first Christmas not travelling “home” for Christmas day (well, a couple years earlier we had to come a day or so later because of weather but we still made it). I went up with the kids before New Year’s, to stay at the house and help with inventorying things, and it was beyond strange to know that Mom wasn’t there and wasn’t going to be. The only time I nearly lost it though, was when I took the kids to Hershey Park for the evening (they open up at Christmastime) and we were sitting in Chocolate World, listening to Christmas carols (which Mom loved).

As stories go, it’s not nearly as heartbreaking as many here, but it still sucked.

110

OK. I have mine:

Back in the 90’s I was living in Philly but in an apartment a few miles from my parent’s house. We have a traditional T-day get-together at their place with as much of the family as can show up, which means my brother & his then gf, my parents and a couple of family friends.

I had planned to come with my own gf, except she broke up with me 2 days earlier, having decided that my inability to read her mind was going to hinder her efforts to dysfunctional to her own family’s holidays. So I was already a bit miserable.

But no biggie, I decide that I will walk to my parent’s place. It is downtown and good exercise. The parade is over, so the streets are empty, downright barren. You could film a post apocalypse movie if you hurried. This is normal, it is also cloudy and chilly.

As I am walking past a Wawa I realize I forgot my wallet. I grumble to myself since I cannot get a soda and I wanted to do that since I never know what drinks my parents will have. It turns out I am glad I didn’t have it.

A couple blocks later my head decides to go suddenly four feet to the right and slam into the side of a brownstone house. I crumple and head someone yelling “fucker pussy fuck” and even though I am in a daze I realize my pockets are being tugged at. I am being mugged. But I don’t have anything so the mugger runs off, apparently. I don’t really remember.

I do know that I got up as if this was perfectly normal and walked the last couple of blocks to my parent’s house. I felt pretty sick but it just was not dawning on me that I was mugged. I stopped a couple of times and sat on steps to rest. Apparently there was blood running down my face but the city was so barren that nobody saw me. Thankfully it was too cold to try and sleep because that seemed like a good idea to me.

When I got to my parents they almost dropped dead faint seeing their son with blood streaking down his face. Long story short I ended up at the hospital with my Dad and the police took the report there. I ended up staying the night at my parents after getting back mighty late to mostly leftovers.

There was no permanent damage, except that my brother’s gf complained loudly that my showing up like that ‘ruined Thanksgiving’. He broke up with her on Valentine’s Day.

111

Your story made me :frowning: and :eek: but I :smiley: at the last sentence. Awesome coda.

112

I remember that (in fact I think I posted to the original thread) but I think this is the first time we’ve seen pix of the Torqueling.

Whatever happened with the adoption? Did you decide not to go through with that?

And was your wife written up in the medical journals? That’d make a heck of a keepsake to pass on to your daughter :).

113

I presume the perp got away. Bastard.

114

You see there was a dog and a ham. Now that that one is out of the way…

The most disappointing holiday season was when dad died between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Now I’ll have to tell a story about dad. One year he had my name for the family Christmas exchange and even though I had given him the requested list of stuff I would like, on Christmas day I got a $20 bill in an envelope. We had actually been together in the store that had items on this list a couple times before Christmas, but he never picked anything up. In fact he forgot until Christmas. In the envelope with the $20 was a note on a scrap of paper “Buy fork”.

I had asked for a good spading fork, but as you can see he never remembered his shopping list until Christmas, at which time I got his money envelope with his shopping list. I spent the $20 on food and he brought a spading fork to my house the Saturday after Christmas.

He usually remembered to shop before Christmas, but his gifts could be rather strange. He just had a knack for picking out some jaw dropping, head rubbing, what the hey presents too. I remember getting a battery operated massager one year. He would buy us kids a game every year and whatever he picked would require either 5 to 8 people to play, or take 4 hours or longer to finish. It would get played one time before being relegated to the closet for good. Ma would get gift certificates where she could pick out clothes or such, which saved him from the ramifications of presents like irons or pots he would also shower on her in his showings of affection.

Now some people would think these gifts would ruin Christmas, but they didn’t. You used most, stuck some in a drawer, and still laugh about the jaw dropping, head rubbing, what the hey presents dad used to give.

115

Senior year, high school, the first girl I ever dated breaks up with me two days before Christmas. Christmas day the doctor calls to tell me that I did indeed have a severe case of mono. I woke up at around 1 PM, came downstairs to open my presents, and saw a pile of unwrapped stuff in the corner. Apparently, I had woken up with everyone else earlier, opened everything, and then gone back to bed, and couldn’t remember it at all.

I haven’t had anything resembling a birthday party since before college (I’m 36). I don’t even think I’ve gotten birthday present or cake in that time. I don’t really care anymore, and I actually forgot my own birthday one year.

116

If you were in the Gulf, surely it would have been the late afternoon for you? It was like 1.45pm where I was in Europe. (Without meaning to piss on your story.)

Anyway, for me, aged 41 and adjusting to being single after 18 years of being in a monogamous relationship or other, involved holiday visits to my parents that were handled thus: “Since you’re on your own, we’ve put you in with [seven-year-old nephew]”. To which I refused, and slept on the couch. And then during a summer visit: “The house is full - since you’re alone, can you sleep in a tent?” Which I did, lying there on my own in the garden thinking “what has my life come to?”

117

For my wife’s 40th birthday, which fell on a Sunday, we decided to do a long weekend in Las Vegas. We both took Monday and Tuesday off work and flew out on Saturday afternoon.
I planned an entire day’s worth of activities on her birthday, but didn’t give her any details beforehand. We had brunch at one of the nicer hotels, a couple’s massage in the afternoon, a nice dinner, etc.

Except that late in the afternoon I noticed I was starting to feel a little off. Spoiler alert: I’m pretty sure something from the brunch buffet gave me food poisoning, but I didn’t know that yet. I pressed on for my wife’s sake; I didn’t want to ruin her big day, and we were enjoying ourselves, after all. I was trying to hide it, but after dinner she could tell I wasn’t feeling well, and suggested maybe we should call it a night. I would have loved to do so, but I had one more surprise lined up that I just couldn’t give up. No, I’m fine, I insisted, let’s play the slots for a while! Because – and she didn’t know this yet – in half an hour a limo was arriving to drive us to the Little White Wedding Chapel for a renewal of our vows – something I knew she’d always wanted to do.

The motion of the limo ride was only making things worse, and by the time we got there I could barely speak above a mumble. But dammit, I was going to see this through! It was a lovely ceremony, I suppose, but I was more focused on trying to keep my dinner down. As the minister pronounced us renewed, or whatever they say, my wife gave my a big strong hug – and that was what pushed me over the top. I broke away and literally ran to the men’s room, where I just barely made it to the toilet and proceeded to loudly and violently puke what seemed like everything I had eaten in the last three weeks.

With as much dignity as I could muster, I walked out, paid the cashier, and we got in the limo to head back to the hotel. I had two hours left on the rental and we were going to cruise all over town, but it was not to be. It was straight to the room, where I spent the next 36 straight hours, sleeping, drinking water and puking it up, sleeping, eating saltines and puking them up, sleeping, and so on. I just barely felt well enough to fly home on Tuesday, but the flight was not a pleasant experience.

Mrs. Wheelz, bless her heart, did appreciate everything I did and felt bad for me, not for ruining her birthday. And we did get most of a good day in before I erupted. She got out of the room for a bit on Monday and walked the strip, and went and got some dinner by herself but said it was no fun without me.

118

We were on a 4th of July ATVing vaction in upper Wisconsin. We were outside on ATV’s far from camp and exposed while trees came down all around us in a deluge. There was a tornado that came down far enough to twist off some of the trees near us, but most were coming down from high winds. Ma’s ATV’s clutch plate broke and we had to tow it back with all the downed trees making us detour through a lumber harvested area with log and brush debris all over, washed out roads and continuing storms. Later we attended the fireworks about 30 minutes from camp that had almost been called off due to more tornadoes. There were missing people that hadn’t been found yet when we left a couple days later for a different ATV trail area. The women all went home leaving my two brothers and me to have at it. There it rained for the next four days and the temps were in the 50’s. Much has been left out. Let me say this is the only time I was thrilled to find a McDonalds. I was having troubles walking just before this vacation too, which turned later in ever worsening problems that took years before I started getting better.

119

I just love this, it put a smile on my face. What a great memory to have of him. :slight_smile:

120

I remember the cake thing happening a few times. Ask for the cake you want. Have the cake youngest sister likes that you hate.