Christmas 1994.
I had just broken up with the fiancee (after having ordered wedding invitations) after a huge, brutal fight. I had nowhere to go but my hardcore fundie sister’s house. She did her best to take care of me, but there’s only so many times I can hear “you’ll find a nice boy if you go to church” or “I don’t know why you dated that black boy anyways.” :rolleyes: I was covered in bruises and slept on a bunk bed above my 11 year old nephew, who liked to kick the top bed in order to go to sleep.
I never felt so alone in my entire life. And I had no one to talk to, as my best guy friend was living in Ft. Lauderdale, and my best girl friend was living in Delaware. I wasn’t allowed (??) to use the phone to call long distance, even though I was paying rent and almost half the bills. When we went to my parents’ house, I had to put up with the “we told you not to date that black boy” and “next time you should listen to us!” all day long.
Thank God for the passage of time.
Skerri, who once dated “a black boy”, and “paid the price”… :rolleyes: [sup]10[/sup]
[sub]Note: my parents have chilled out considerably since then.[/sub]
My cousin killed herself on Dec. 26th of last year. Dunno how much it ruined Christmas since the holiday get-togethers were basically over, but it was far and away the worst New Year’s ever.
Well, I’m at work this Christmas Eve, 800 miles away from my family. Oh yeah, plus I have to work Christmas Day as well. And I can’t see very well because I lost my glasses while drunk as a boiled owl last night, which is incidentally also the reason I have such a tremendous hangover today as I sit here at work until 1:30 in the morning.
Ashy, mi amore, you know you are ALWAYS welcome here with us.
Siah would be more than happy to have someone else to play Playstation and computer games with him!
Any time kiddo… gimme a call… you know how to get a hold of me.
KGS, you’re right. This thread is just too depressing. Just to let you know, my parents are much better around me now that I’ve told them off a few times. They’ve come to accept the fact that I dated someone they didn’t approve of, and we’ve all put it behind us. And now I have a wonderful boyfriend, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, who cares for me more than anyone else I’ve ever dated. So, yes, things have gotten so much better.
Time heals all wounds and wounds all heels, so if you’re having a crappy Christmas, please know it will get better. I speak with the voice of experience.
Today I spent the day with my SO at the hospital where he got an emergency IV…however, the upside is that it worked wonders and we came home and fixed a (late) dinner and had a great night. However, seeing other families at the hospital who were not so lucky to go home tonight put it all in perspective. The most impressive were the elderly volunteers at that hospital, working on Christmas Eve and being cheerful and hardworking…and knowing a lot of them probably had no one at home.
Prior to that, travelling with a women through Europe, we got money from our parents wired to us on December 23, got ripped off the night of the 24th and spent December 25th in Munich, sharing one bowl of split pea soup…the only thing we could afford with the change we found in our pockets. We didn’t eat for two days after that. Somehow, it was so ridiculous that we laughed our way through most of it.
Mine was almost every year. Mom would work herself into a frenzy getting everything “just right” for the whole family [no matter how much we would tell her to relax and not do so much], then spend most of the night throwing up from all the stress. (Part of it, we found out later, was gall bladder problems and all the rich food, but even after having it removed, she would still work herself to the point of exhaustion and have the gall (or lack of) to complain that “no one appreciated everything she did for us”). :mad: Still does it, according to my sister.
Christmas? Hell, add Easter and Thanksgiving and repeat ad nauseum. Which is why I don’t celebrate any of the Big Three. I feel bad for (former)Roommate, who loves the holidays.
“It’s just not Christmas without the sounds of retching.”
I was hoping last year would be the worst. My Mom died last year, 2 weeks before Christmas. We’d been expecting it for awhile, but the worst part was dealing with the relatives I hadn’t seen in 20 years. Reminded me of why I ran away when I was 16.
But I’ll have to say this year was much worse. Because of husband’s 2 months of unemployment, and various health problems. All gifts we got from relatives will be sold on ebay, and generous money gift from MIL will pay for groceries next 2 weeks.
Bad Christmas experiences? Ok, how’s this (I actually think it’s pretty funny, but all my friends seem to think it’s sad). When I was four years old, I had gone to visit my dad for the holidays. On Christmas morning I was excited to receive a cool train set from good old dad. Being a clutzy young thing (a trait I continue to display 28 years later), I accidentally broke one of the tracks for my new toy :(…my father told me, quite earnestly, that I obviously didn’t deserve nice things because I couldn’t take care of them and that next year I was gonna get a"piece of sh%$ wrapped in toilet paper!" Ahh the happy childhood memories I have of that man…I wonder why he never won Father of the Year.
That wasn’t my WORST Christmas, however, that didn’t occur for many years. Remember those lovely Christmas Eve’s when mom would get smashed (and beat her boyfriend up with common household items and then lock him out of the house? I made the horrible mistake of telling her she was overreacting and suddenly found myself on the other side of a locked door on late at night. I spent that night sleeping in the car and the next day just wandering around. Oh, did I fail to mention that not only did we not get a tree that year, but I didn’t receive even ONE present. THAT had to have been the crappiest Christmas ever.
On the plus side, it’ll take a pretty AWFUL Christmas for me to ever not appreciate one again.
I don’t remember the year. My sister’s family was living in North Carolina, and the wife and I flew out to see them and my parents there.
My mom had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Syndrome. She was still somewhat functional at that point, but she had gone through her entire lifetime suffering from chronic depression. Throughout her life, she lashed out at those around her, making us as miserable as she was. In the face of dibilitation and death, things had not changed. She was angry the entire time and made sure everyone knew it. Nothing anyone said or did was the right thing.
In addition, my father, who recently had overcome a brain aneurysm, was getting used to life without cigarettes and alcohol, both of which could now kill him (even more). He was not prepared for any of this and had no idea how to handle it.
My poor wife, in addition to getting cornered by my mother and having her unleash fifty years of anger and depression at her, also discovered that he bedroom we were sleeping in was usually inhabited by the three cats, which she is quite allergice to.
At one poitn we willingly watched “Batman Forever” because we knew that during that hour and a half, no one else would come in the room.
We made it out of there and landed at Indianapolis, where we had flown out of to save money. We landed in the middle of an ice storm at 10pm. As we drove the two hours from Indy to home on solid ice, the wife was still dealing with the effects of the cat allergies and I had a pounding migraine.
Might be the time when my neice was 4 and got well over 30 presents from my parents, her grandparents. I had to leave the room.
But this year has to be it. Parents would not accept No for an answer. Repeatedly. We had other plans and my mother can’t put two and two together. Calls to bother us, talks to my wife and puts her 5 year old grandson (my nephew) on the phone to emotionally blackmail her into agreeing to come.
So we ain’t going. Period. Get my (also abused) sister to come by to pick up our presents for them. Discuss our parents, the abuse they dealt us both, how they just won’t understand that my wife and I have FIVE different groups to spend holidays with.
Just as she’s leaving, my sister makes a nasty crack about my wife’s medication. Never saw it coming. They’ve been “sisters” up until now.
Ok, so now we have FOUR, four groups to spend the holidays with…
BTW: I went to see Two Towers on Christmas Day. On the way out I stopped and waited for a friend to go to the can. Stood in the lobby watching people file out from the movies. EVERYONE had a nasty look on their face. Every single person who walked by me. Same with the people filing in. Everyone seemed to be irritated and angry.
