Worst Christmas meal ever? Can be because of hideous food, dreadful company, unbearable tension...or all of the above!

[sprigatito]

We had some terrible Christmases when I was a child - divorced parents, nobody got along, my mother was a crap cook and had a violent temper and my stepfather had Victorian tendencies (no talking at the table) so Christmas dinner was generally horrendous on a number of levels. This wasn't improved during the years when my dad was around for Christmas, because we'd get dropped off at his (freezing, uninhabitable) house straight after dinner, where he'd have bought enough meat and cheese to feed an army and expect us to eat it all. Christmases at home tended to end with a blazing row and someone storming out in the middle of dinner/charades/the night.

I love Christmas now (and am NC with my mother) but at around this time of year I do get the slight collywobbles remembering how awful it used to be. I have this horrible but funny image of my mother's face under a gaily coloured paper hat snarling "you've ruined Christmas for everyone, now shut your mouth or I'll knock your block off"

So what's your "worst Christmas dinner ever" story?

I had covid, dd had covid, stbxh had covid. Pre-vaccine and we were ILL!
Still had 3 younger dc who believed in Santa though so had to attempt to make it magical. I was puking. we tried to order a takeaway but they kept getting cancelled. In the end the dc had frozen pizzas for dinner - but we added pigs in blankets to make it festive.
Ah memories I care not to repeat. Thank goodness it was just one year and we can all laugh about how crap it was - and being 2020, so was everyone else's

The one and only year my DC saw their dad at Christmas, so I thought we'd have Chinese so I wasn't spending our time cooking. Big mistake. Such a disappointment. I mean, I love Chinese, but it just wasn't right.

For some reason, my parents decided to stay at home, me and my brother were pre-teen or just into teens, so not into playing with toys etc. Mum decided to make a curry. Meanwhile, round at my aunt’s house, my smaller cousins were having a great day with their toys and a fabulous meal. My aunt or one of my cousins does Christmas Day on alternate years now, my parents always go, it’s brilliant. I have no idea why we stayed home and barely spoke to each other all day that year. 🤷‍♀️

The year my (abusive) exH who was of a faith that didn't celebrate Christmas announced, after always enjoying the secular part (ie gifts, dinner), that it was 'against his religion' and he wanted nothing to do with it, absolutely NOTHING. He wasn't buying me a gift and I was not to buy him one. I was not allowed to put up Christmas decorations, or play Christmas music in our house. I did make it clear to him that I was buying gifts for my family and I would be going to my parent's per usual and he could come or stay home as he chose. The day came and I got ready to go and he suddenly said he would deign go to dinner at my parents. Then he sat there with a face like a slapped arse because my family took him at his word so there were no gifts for him. That was our last Christmas together.

After a similar incident where he ate and then walked out of a 4th of July family picnic without so much as a thank you and good bye to my aunt & uncle (hosting) I'd had enough. I kicked him out about 2 weeks later (after my personal duck parade, lol).

The dinner that was cold leftovers because my mother wouldn't allow me to BF my 3mo at the table while I was eating.

When I was a teenager I had a couple of really sad Christmases. My Mum's dad had died earlier in the year and he always spent Christmas with us. We were in the middle of dinner when my Ddad suddenly said to DM, "I miss your dad" and then burst into tears. I had never seen him cry before. The following year was even worse. My DB was killed in a road accident and my Dad's father died a few months later. That was the worst one ever. No idea how we got through that one.

Couldn't eat a bite as throat closed up - ended up in out of hours with tonsillitis

I was only 18

Horrid

At the care home with my mum and many other dementia sufferers. It was so quiet and sad.

Last year I paid £400 for xmas dinner with inlaws at a pub. The menu wasn't adjusted for children despite charging £50 a head for them (£75 for adults) so they wouldn't eat a starter. I had camembert which was served with....a fork! No bread for dipping. Just a fork which didn't work due to it being virtually liquid! I questioned it but they just said "well it doesn't mention bread on the menu".
Main Meal was awful - tasted cheap. Deserts were shit.

Making it myself this year!

@MouseMinge solidarity on losing your dad at such an early age. Mine died when I was 10, a few days into the New Year after being ill over the Christmas period. So most Christmases after that were miserable. My DM had already had more than her fair share of tragedy and my dad's death made her hard, cold and bitter. Lots of comments along the lines of "merry bloody Christmas", "here's your bloody present, you'd better be grateful for it" and awkward trips to have dinner at her sister's, whom she hated since childhood.

I too have an ambivalent relationship with Christmas. Deep jealousy of those who have lovely families to visit and be visited by. But also relief that I (and DH and 2 DC) can please ourselves on the day. I try really hard to make everything warm, relaxed, loving and fun.

Nothing too terrible but I had Christmas dinner with my ex at his dad’s house one year, on Boxing Day.

He was tight as a door hinge (he had plenty of money) so dinner was some weird mixed meat thing with tinned peas and sweetcorn and gravy. For dessert he started rooting around in the cupboards for tinned fruit 😐

His house was absolutely freezing too because he wouldn’t put the heating on. He was wearing a coat.

I. Always ask for bread sauce if at someone's house for Christmas, I love it.

I'm glad you have good ones now, @moggerhanger . I'm hoping for a good one this year. I'm currently eating very little, anything I do is more or less liquid and I'm relying on a feeding tube but I'll have a big op at the beginning of December (hopefully, fingers crossed, etc) and if all goes well I could be eating solid food again by Christmas. I don't care what it is, it doesn't have to be a traditional Christmas dinner, just hot solid food will be a huge treat after months of this stuff. 🙂

My mum got so drunk she couldn't cook the dinner. Age 17 I took over and did a pretty good job I thought. My step dad refused to eat any of it because I'd cooked it. I don't know why she was drunk, it was the only time I ever saw her like that.

Another bread sauce lover here.

A can of Lilt and a packet of crisps that I couldn't even stomach because I was in the throes of d&v

I'd be really upset if I heard my son and his wife screaming at each other. I can see why it spoilt her Christmas.

Oh. I was going to say the year that FIL dropped the oven dish of pigs in blankets en route to the table. Shards of glass everywhere and we couldn’t eat the pigs in blankets.

But there are some truly awful stories here which put everything into perspective!

Was dating someone 2001-2005 in my earl to mid 20s who was 10 years older than me. We were living in Oxfordshire at the time (closer to his parents) so would alternate Christmases between his family and mine who are all in the North West.

Every year we went to his parents it was overcooked roasties that could crack a tooth and shatter a window, with never enough gravy to go around. With my parents, who had an Aga range cooker until they had the kitchen redone a few years later, it was always roasties that varied from slightly to very undercooked! Honestly, that bloody Aga took half the day to bring a pan of water up to boil 😂 Plus the rigmarole of arguing against, but ultimately being forced by my Mum to try the mashed carrot and swede again “In case my tastes had changed, because they do as you get older! Just a little bit on your plate to try.” 🙄

The relief when my DH and I started having Christmas Day dinner at home, just us and the dogs and being able to eat perfectly cooked roasties, with loads of gravy and no unwanted vegetables!!

Newsflash: I’m now 41 and still don’t like carrot and bloody swede!!

@MouseMinge oh bless you, sounds like a rough time. Fingers crossed that you can have some nice food by Xmas!

@mrswhiplington that is so sad. I’m so sorry you lost your brother.

The one that never happened at my boyfriend's (now DP's) parents' house where it was the first Christmas I was spending with them, and we all promptly came down with flu and were all dreadfully ill and the meal never happened!

The first Xmas after my dad left for the ow. I was about 15, sister 12. We spent Xmas day with dad, ow and her 2 kids who were same age as sister and me.
Her 2 kids had piles and piles of expensive presents. It took them hours to open them all. My sister had a pencil case and I had a make up bag. Apparently, dad couldn't afford anything more. Although he managed a very expensive, exotic holiday immediately after Xmas.
I have never felt so humiliated and unwanted as I did that Xmas. Sitting silently whilst watching them open all those presents was appalling.

Should give an honourable mention to dh's worst Xmas.
His grandad died on Xmas day. He was due to drive round for lunch. When he didn't turn up they went to find him. He was sitting behind the wheel in his car on the drive. Dead.
Not a good Xmas.

My (alcoholic) mother used to try and burn the house down at Christmas! I remember several Christmas Eves where she would drunkenly drop lit matches and my poor DDad chasing round stamping them out. How on Earth all the paper decorations (1970s) didn’t burst into flame I’ll never know.