I was always allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve, probably to calm the excitement. One present under the tree when I was nine years old was from my parents’ good friend who always affectionately called me “Trapper Charlie”, even though my name wasn’t Charles. I chose his present, as it was in a moderately-sized box. After digging through all the wrapping, I emerged with a brand-new mousetrap. I still feel the burn of disappointment.
Hey, great! Let’s do a group hug!:mad: :rolleyes:
I’m about this far from reporting to the mods all of these shiny happy good thoughts for the holiday threads. This isn’t fair. This thread is about lamest, disappointing, etc…
Please knock off the Mr. Rodgers stuff.
Please.
Best wishes,
hh
Last Thanksgiving was pretty horrible. My husband (then fiance) and I flew to Texas to spend the holiday with my family. My aunt Nikki got drunk, rambled on about how she took a bunch of X at a concert in the 80’s once, and during a family card game took the cards in her hand and rubbed them all over her boobs. After deciding that this was too much we went into the other room where my grandfather is talking about how he should have a legal right to take his new AK-47 (that he bought illegally and never registered) and shoot people as they try to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. At this point my husband can tell I’m getting ready to go nuclear on my family and tries to tell a joke about immigration but it falls flat so I go upstairs to hide out and my mother comes after me telling me that I’m a horrible person for sticking her in the middle of all of this drama. I tell her I’m not going to go back downstairs and listen to my grandpa talk about genocide as a solution to perceived national problems. Eventually I go back downstairs and suck it up to keep from turning it into an even uglier day but that cemented for me that I have no need to ever spend a holiday with those people ever again.
I think the worst day was my husband’s birthday last year though. His birthday is July 24th. We had to move out of our apartment on July 18th and were only given about 6 days notice so we’ve paid some friends to pack up our stuff while we are at work and signing papers for our new apartment so things are incredibly hectic. On July 16th my husband got laid off from his job. On July 17th we get a call that his grandmother is really sick and to be ready to come up after we get moved to see her. On July 18th we get moved in and charged $700 more than our quoted price by the movers. On July 19th we head up to CT and sit with his grandmother while she passes. Then we find out that based on the stuff already going on at the church his grandmother’s funeral can only be held on his birthday. So after the week from hell he spends his birthday without a single gift from his extended family and even though his mom, aunt, sister, and I make sure that he has presents and is celebrated but it is still a sad, somber day for everyone. This coming birthday I am throwing him an awesome party to make up for this last birthday.
Christmas 1975.
I’m living in Austin and working as a deputy sheriff. I luck out and get Xmas off, so the wife and I head down to visit my parents. My older brother and his wife were recently divorced, but his wife was there so that the grandkids could have Xmas with my parents as well.
All goes well until my bro shows up. One of the major reasons they divorced was his drug addiction. He was higher than a kite when he arrived and started drinking heavily on top of it as soon as he hit the door. He made a pass at my wife and got pissed when she shut him down. He then made a pass at his ex and she shut him down even harder. Dad asked him to tone it down and the lid blew off. My bro went apeshit on my dad and started screaming shit at him that apparently had been bottled up for years. It was pure ugly and I finally stepped in to calm it down. Bro swings on me and I wind up ramming his head into the refrigerator door, then dragging his semi-conscious carcass out onto the front lawn. He comes to, starts in on me about how ashamed he is to have a fucking pig for a brother. I respond how ashamed I have to have a fucking junkie for a brother. He takes off and that’s the last time I see him alive.
A year and a half later, two days before his 39th birthday, he comes over to my folks’ house again; they’ve made up over time and they are going to take him out to dinner. He flips out again, but this time I’m not there to break things up. It gets worse and worse and he finally attacks my dad, screaming that he’s gonna kill him. My mother shot him to death to protect my father.
It’s been 35 years and I am still pissed off at that sorry, selfish junkie asshole that my big brother turned into. Every Xmas since then, I remember all of this. My parents are both dead, I’m long divorced from the lady I was married to then, my nieces are both grown and out in the world…and I still remember this and grind my teeth. I’m sitting here pissed off beyond belief just telling this story.
Fuck you, bro, you insensitive, worthless boarhog.
pbbth, I know the first story was horrible for you, but it reads as hilarious, right out of a sitcom. Unregistered guns, wild middle-aged aunt, hating on Mexicans, etc. What hijinks will they get up to next! 
I hope in time you come to see it as amusing. If it helps at all, the last time my mom and her brothers got together they reenacted the details of the latest Cialis commercial in a Palm Beach Olive Garden while I melted into the chair.
But your poor hubby 
What a truly terrible week. It sounds like everyone came together, though.
:eek:
I don’t know if it’ll help poor pbbth, but it sure as hell helped me! 
Christmas I tell my parents that I am going to marry the now Mrs. Algher. The remainder of the Christmas visit is spent with hearing about problems, why this is terrible, culminating in my father telling me that I am no son of his. I could not get away, since we are on a small boat in the ocean at the time (we are a family of sailors, and had chartered a sailboat for running around the islands for the holiday). Not only was this going on, but I was stuck on less than 50 feet of sailboat.
My ability to control my temper was sorely tested during that trip, and the drive back to their house where I had left my car.
I am SO glad that the dysfunctional members of my family never remember to show up for family events. The semi-dysfunctional ones seem to be able to hold it together for a couple of hours before wandering off.
Back near the end of page 3, a couple of you asked what the long term result was, when my kids held Christmas morning without me. As I said, to this day (they are 37 and 39) they remember me breaking down, and trudging upstairs. They remember how I didn’t want to even look at them for about half an hour. They remember my face as I prepared our dinner. They apologized, of course, but apologies didn’t make me any happier, either.
I didn’t say much - I couldn’t say much - and my silence, and body language, has stayed with them to this day.
Oh, and in after years, they waited for me before they fell into their gifts.
Someone else said that on the 24th, they opened a gift. Mine did, too, ‘for practice’ and it was usually new flannel pajamas and a book 
Son has no children, but daughter has, and the granddaughters, too, get to choose one gift to open, before bed, on the 24th.
Ditto… but then I stop and realize that my “vague yearly holiday angst” ain’t that bad.
I’ve been worried about T’giving, but compared to the families here, my Tea Party White Supremacist relatives are, I now realize, manageable. They may spout stupid, thoughtless, racist slurs, but that now seems lightweight.
Y’all have just made me feel lucky by comparison. So your suffering has not been in vain.
Well, one can always hope. 
Of course you are right, Purplehorseshoe. I truly meant it in a light-hearted, conversational way, but that doesn’t change that I appreciate you catching it and pointing it out. The lesson that what I feel is ok and matters is one that took me a long time to learn yet you hit it dead-on.
I REALLY appreciate the “FUB expat” advice!! I don’t share my FUB much in real life for a couple of reasons: 1. I don’t spend much energy thinking about the past, I prefer to stay in the moment and/or move forward. And 2. It’s hard for most folks to understand. When it comes to growing up, plenty have had it worse; but most have had it better. It’s too layered to try to bring people up to speed and too depressing to get into… you know what I mean?
It is nice to know I’m not alone, though. 
Elbows, what a poignant story. My heart aches for the child you were; and rejoices for the woman now. Your posts truly touched me.
I think this one wins the thread.
Win is the opposite of what he did. There are no winners.
I guess it’s like the Congressional Medal of Honor. You “earn” it rather than “win” it. 
Then report me. Or take it to the pit. Sorry I haven’t had the miserable existence that you’ve had. I didn’t realize that there was a “Must be this bitter to ride” requirement.
Ah, I forgot that I DO have something to make you happy Harry! I found out yesterday that one of my cousins died. It’s not the best offering since it was one of my loser white-trash druggie cousins that I haven’t spared a thought on in 10 years. And my mom hasn’t completely dismissed the possibility that this is another scam by her sister for (drug) money. But it’s a death and surely that should satisfy Harry’s best wishes.
We’re having Mom’s memorial service between Christmas and New Year’s because that’s when most of the family will have time off. No idea if my brothers will be there or not; one’s okay for the most part, the other’s a complete bully whose head I once tried to put through a wall.
Aw, come on, Hypno-Toad. I think hh waas just trying to keep the spirit of the thing alive. You know, the total downer rejoicing in misery spirit that we so love. Come on, join us! Dash your tankard against mine as we bemoan the state of our fucked up families and tragic, life shattering occasions!