Can we start a CF Christmas thread?

[AllRoadsLeadBackToRadley]

Because:

I need some light relief

I'll start. DS (nc now) once texted me on Christmas Eve to tell me (not ask) that her and DN were coming for Christmas...and staying for three weeks!

There was a list of instructions with the text, including:

I'll be sleeping in your room, and you, DH and DN can all share with DD, because I've had him all year alone and need a break. (She actually told me she was giving me a chance to prove that I was a better aunty than a sister!)

There'll be none of that (insert horrible racist word beginnig with P) shit that you normally cook. I'm allergic to hot food.

DN wakes up at 5.30. He needs breakfast within a half hour of waking, or else he won't be able to poo later in the day.

I need picking up at 6.00 at the latest, so you can give him tea.

Then she had the nerve to text DH and tell him I'd agreed to it, and she was ready to be collected! DH left work, and it wasn't until I'd been waiting in the rain for him to pick me up as arranged, and called him, that I dound out he was halfway to where she lived! (30 miles from us).

I'd just ignored the text.

He came straight back, I sent a "lol, dream on!" text, cue months- MONTHS- of PA fbk statuses about family not being everything, etc, etc...

Anyone else?

Wow OP, wow (ps I'd take spicy food get a roast any Xmas, have me in nice!)

My DM died a few years ago, now every year prior to that my DF & DM went aboard for Xmas.

A week before Xmas, first Xmas without my DM, my DF texted me asking me to spend Xmas with him and his new GF. I was pregnant, if was a hours drive away, and it was a total sore spot! Anyway I said no, and my DF didn't speak to me for a month!

My brother is a cheeky fucker this year. He lives on other side of the world. He got married in secret this year. Now he has decided he and his new wife will come home to my parents for Christmas.
Problem, I am due on Christmas day and the birth of my first child is getting in the way of his plans.
He was angry with md because...

1. I won't be coming to mums for Christmas
2. I set a 25 quid per person spending limit on gifts from me this year. He wanted 100 quid from everyone to buy a fancy camera for his wife
3. I said he could come visit new years eve but we wouldn't be going out. He wants us to take him round the city
4. I won't be greeting them at the airport like the rest of the family

So apparently I'm the Grinch who stole Christmas

Love him really but I don't think he has any idea what childbirth entails

Wow Neoflex I am assuming your DB had ample notice of your impending birth. Sounds more like a state visit than a 'going home for Christmas'

Its an easterone, but it really ticked me off.
My Dsis stepchildren apparently didn't eat chocolate so at easter we were all instructed to purchase a toy in the place of an easter Egg, from an a proved list as well, no problem worked out more expensive but better than getting something they wouldn't eat at all. I have a big family so they ended up receiving 14 toys each, all the other children got the standard eggs. After lunch we did an easter Egg hunt in the garden with little chocolate eggs which everyone joined in for. We were quite suprised to find these children who don't eat chocolate had rushed off and found 90% of the hidden chocolate eggs and scoffed them. There wasn't enough for all the other children! On questioning the whole "hang on they don't eat chocolate" thing, it turns out they simply wanted more expensive toys instead of eggs. That gravy train has died, they get eggs from everyone now.

Toasty that's fucking outrageous! The cheek of some people!

Love a CF thread!

PILs have been to us (almost) every year for 30 years. The vast majority of those they have come empty handed in terms of food/wine etc & never lift a finger to help. They have never had room to host, although have never expressed any regret that they couldn't do so. They now live in a bigger house but have not invited us as "we'd like to be just the 3 of us(sister of MIL too) this year". No-ones ever asked us if we would like to be just the 5 of us. Actually they did bring wine once, I saw it in their room, but they took it home again. Maybe the catering wasn't up to scratch.

Secret Santa while I was with my ex. I received a baby stacking toy🙄I was not pregnant and I know it was from his best friend.

Really upset me so DM returned it and got me some hello kitty lip balm😋

The husband who's invited a houseful of people and expects his wife to cook for them - is he always this much of a knob? If so, how about giving yourself a great Christmas by handing him divorce papers?

My mother was the CF in this one (she was batshit). We had been organising my daughter's first Christmas. It was always going to be complicated because we had to fit in 1) My parents, 2) Husband's lovely but very frail grandmother 3) My Uncle that my parents weren't speaking to. (He's single and has no other family) 4) Husband's mother and her skanky bf of the week 5) Husband's father and stepmother.

Obviously due to politics, everyone wanted to see my DD open her presents. (At four months, she couldn't give a rat's arse about it all...). My mother and father were invited to breakfast, which I cooked -- Lovely baked eggs, Italian coffee, etc.... No show.

I received a phone call from my mother as I was serving morning tea for lovely grandmother telling me that Dad hadn't felt like going out for breakfast, she would be around right now, and that my husband's grandmother wouldn't mind. I assured her that I minded, and that wasn't going to work. She then told me that I would be bringing my baby over to her place for dinner as she had invited every man and his dog to see her. I told her that I wasn't, as we had Christmas perfectly arranged and wasn't going to mess other people around because she had no manners.

Cue lunch with Uncle. He took cover when my mother drove so fast up our driveway that she dented our garage door, she threw Christmas presents over the fence while screaming abuse. My husband went outside and gave her a piece of his mind because I was in tears by this stage.

Afternoon tea with MIL and her dodgy BF. So much fun. Phone rings and rings and rings and rings. We don't answer it.
Dinner with FIL and his wife - very nice people, but my heart wasn't in it. More phoning. Finally my father rings my husband and said "We were expecting you around for dinner - It's VERY rude of you!!!" When he was told that his breakfast had gone cold and uneaten, it turned out that my mother hadn't even told him that they had been invited for breakfast or he that she had thrown the presents over the fence, screaming abuse. She had been telling everyone for weeks that we were going to be there for Christmas dinner with our baby all along. FUUUUUCK!

Wow justilou1 just wow!

Can't beat a CF thread

justilou1 I hope your father had the good grace to apologise to you and your DH

Ahh no, guys... Dad was as much of an entitled berk as my mother was. He just dismissed her tantrumming as "You know what she's like....." and let her take the blame at my end, while I was no doubt being slated at her end for being an ungrateful bitch and not showing up to make them look good in front of their friends who had been looking forward to meeting my baby for months!

I asked my SIL if she had any ideas what to get her 7 year old son for Xmas.
She said a rugby shirt from a certain club.

When I found the shirt it was about £50,I decided to buy it anyway but did feel a bit miffed because the son has other rugby shirts so surely the mum would have an idea how much they were.

The family also had other children,a 2 year old and a 6 month old boy.

My son who had just turned one received a hand knitted jumper that was way too small........I've always thought the jumper was a gift to the baby from someone else so I bought 3 presents and they didnt buy any.

justilou1 that sounds like the sort of shit my mother would pull....

This year she's not getting her own way at Christmas because we're going to the in laws for the first time in 13 years... so naturally there'll be some abuse hurled

@drspouse LMGTFY- incredible, thank you for posting that. Oh I'm going to have fun with that!

Own CF story. Secret santa at workplace. Colleagues are really lovely people so what could go wrong right?
On SS day we all agree to meet in lady who organises it in her office, all a good laugh, really thoughtful personal presents received, everyone having fun.
Until my friend opened her secret santa gift, which was one of those gifts you get free with a magazine and also broken.
Everyone was a bit and lovely lady rallied round and gave friend a spare SS gift she had got. Turns out the CF was actually a really nice guy he is just very tight. Lovely organiser had a word with him and carried on including him in SS because in all other respects he is great, puts himself out to help others, just has a real blind spot with the gift thing.
The next year he provided a bundle of out of date chocolate bars. But the last year he was included he excelled himself. He gave someone a half burnt candle ( that belonged to his mother- I don't know if she knew he'd gifted it).
After that, lovely organiser suggested he help her with running of it rather than take part...

Not sure I'd class as CF but certainly horrible.

Moved back to near my family in 2012, after 22 years living 600 miles away. I had managed to get back once at Christmas in all those years.

In the meantime, my Dsis had spent every single Xmas Day at my DParent's house with her partner and son.

So I moved back down and not only was I told by Dsis never to ask parents to babysit my dc (they were 13 and 6 at the time) as parents are Very Busy People but also it was made clear by parents and Dsis that there was no room for us on Xmas day as Dsis always goes there.

Of course, there is the pre-Christmas get together which parents host, where there is sis, her partner, son, me, dp and my two dc. So room then but not on Xmas day.

Parents went through a tough patch financially recently so two years ago I paid for everything, all the food and the 'dinner table' parents. I also did all the cleaning up and took pudding with us. (I always make a cheesecake). Dsis does fuck all.

Parents buy lovely presents for Dsis. They don't buy me anything. Dsis never remembers DD2's birthday, she hasn't had a card or present from her in 6 years (she is 12 now) and now DD1 is 19, doesn't even acknowledge it.

So really, I just don't fucking bother anymore.

This year we have invited Dp's sis and bil over as they are on their own, we have invited our 92 year old neighbour if she has no family to go to this year, we have invited a friend who is a paramedic and on nightshift on Xmas Eve and also his mum and nephew.

One year we had a friend and her four children stay with us as she was in a refuge and couldn't have all the kids with her. So we had 3 adults and 6 children in a tiny two bed cottage for four days. It was fucking mayhem and quite honestly very stressful but she was grateful and we managed.

I don't want to spend time with people who don't want to spend time with me.

My cousin came one Christmas Day, brought nothing, drank tons and then raided our cupboards to find some more wine to guzzle. She then invited herself the next year but informed us that she was now vegan and this would need to be taken into consideration when preparing the meal. Luckily we were going to my SIL's that year, so we were able to tell her she'd have to find somewhere else to go (she has siblings, but I expect they were fed up of her as well).

I have to say I was shocked at the post where a couple who had received an item that was obviously a re-gift because the gift tag had been left on, returned the tag to the gifted with a passive aggressive note. I thought that was nasty.

Does giving me presents from Santa and then subsequently taking them back because the cheque bounced count (at least 3 years)? Otherwise I don't think I can join in

Not christmas, but one year (for birthday I think) I was given one of those packs of 2xmugs, with packets of hot chocolate and a tiny whisk. All very nice (tat, but I drink hot chocolate and use mugs...) except the HotChoc packs were about 5 years out of date.

Turns out gifter had won it in a raffle. The pack obviously had done the raffle rounds for years!

There isn't necessarily anything wrong with giving people gifts from charity shops, or that you won in a raffle, or even stuff that was given to you by someone else. If it's food or toiletries, it's worth checking that it's not horrendously out of date - I quite often pass on stuff like those little gift sets of mini-chutneys or fancy jam, if I'm short of gift-buying money. If it's something like a set of mugs/glasses, or a scarf, as long as it looks new and the packaging isn't a wreck, what's the big deal?

I am on a fairly low income and have always done a chunk of Christmas shopping in charity shops. I don't think anyone's ever been outraged by the fact that their gift didn't cost hundreds of pouns...

@claireabella1 - you're not terrible, your ex was terrible, no wonder he is an ex. Sounds like you BIL and SIL nice presents.

@Chocolatecake12 hope you didn't give them leftovers? I give away leftovers but they were cheeky for asking!

@2017sofarsogood please do update us on what they do for Christmas!! And that you didn't pay the bill!

Pippasqueaks - nothing wrong with regifting except when the other person goes to the effort to buy a thoughtful present for you

Egregious what was their response?

Martin Lewis advised buying M&S advent calendars, opening them up and parcelling the contents as Christmas gifts.

SBG - it wasn't the Hot Choc or Mugs as such, but the fact that they'd obvs done the rounds and no one else wanted them enough to use them. They'd obviously been kept until a raffle came round - for years.

I have no problem buying charity shop stuff. I've done it myself. But I would never gift out-of-date foodstuff.

(Off topic but I helped out at a Harvest Festival once - the number of out of date cans and packets donated was eye-watering. Like the donors had riffled through the cupboards to find stuff they'd been given, won or didn't want)