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?

Very very minor but I usually try very hard to buy my DNs something suitable, ask for suggestions etc. A year or two ago (so my DS would have been 4) my DB gave my two children two books as their joint present. One was a history book aimed at 10 year olds in a language my DCs don't speak (I do, and I do a few games with my DCs in that language but not history!), which on opening was revealed to be already inscribed by the author as a present to my DN.
So too boring for his 10yo who speaks the language but not too boring for my 4yo.

Thanks Across - sounds like your family were real lifesavers to your DS's friend. How nice that he's so close to you now.

(The other book was also second hand, in the same language and about the same reading level but at least didn't have my DN name in).

OP did you post anywhere about how it worked out with shagzilla? I'm dying to know!

Yes, I started a new thread, updating. It didn't seem right updating again when the trouble happened with the kids though.

I've never told anyone this before but a post on page one has suddenly brought it to the fore. I was living in a foster home and would visit my mother a week or so before Christmas. I never saw her on Christmas day, she never wanted me then. She would buy me a few presents and I would take them back to the house I lived in. The birth children of the foster "carers" would take what they wanted but I usually was left one or two things.

PILs, who are about the laziest people in the world and expect to be waited on hand and foot were over for Christmas. I was 6 months pregnant with our second DD. MIL (keeping up with her standard behaviour of not lifting a finger, despite me being 6 months pregnant with a toddler) wanders into the kitchen and casually hands me a slimming world brochure, saying, "you'll need this," while I'm slaving away over their Christmas meal. Then she just walked out of the kitchen. What the hell?

dancinfeet. - Thanks for that, as Radley said 'Good point'. I'll find a box and start my Reverse Advent Calendar this week!

@ElephantsandTigers that's very sad. I do hope that Christmas has improved for you since then

What gets me is how family cf's always seem to post a ton of pa 'family is everthing' type posts when they have been incredibly entitled, rude and vile. I have two adult step dd's who are very keen on this sort of behaviour.

My ex boyfriend added me as a friend on Facebook about 5 years after we split up. I accepted his friend request out of boredom/nosiness etc.

Sent a few back and fourths about how we are etc. and he reminded me about the time he came to Christmas at my house, before asking if he could come again this year please? He'd just got a divorce from his cousin, so it would be too awkward to go to his gran's this year!

He was actually really mean to me, and pretty sure he left me for her when we were together.

Mixedupmessages - a couple of years ago dh did me a stocking as I'd never had one and he tries hard to make Christmas as I would like it. I'm starting to realise how bad my childhood was and it's not great.

sizeofalentil - how did you say not a chance pillock?

Elephants it sounds as if we had similar childhoods...

Your kids- like mine- have already received the best gift of all.

They will never feel like we did.

💚💚💚💚💚

Last year I got her some Clementine Chocolate Irish cream from M&S, and he brought her a glass of it every night until it was gone...

Bloody hell, that sounds like the yummiest thing ever 😍

Loving the thread btw

AllRoads - they don't know it though do they? Mine know my childhood wasn't great and I don't have parents but they have no idea how bad it was. I'm not sure if I should tell them stuff or whether actually it's okay that they don't know more than parents were shit, other people looked after me though in some cases clearly didn't.

Stormzy - M&S also do an amazing creme brûlée liqueur. Be careful though. It's very potent it or could just be me being a lightweight!

Elephant I've been quite honest with my DC, without having to go into gory details. DD asked questions when she was about 8, after overhearing a conversation, and she knows that "Mommy's mommy hurt her and let some nasty men hurt her, so she got sent to prison" and DS knows an even more watered down version of the above. I have so many "adopted" family members (two I class as second moms!) that, even though my side of their blood family are shite, they'll never miss out.

I've said this quite a few times on here...but I sort of believe my childhood was the best in the sense of shaping my parenting skills...because I know exactly how NOT to treat a child.

Bloody hell Radley, your sister is a proper CFer!!

I agree with you 100% on this btw:
I sort of believe my childhood was the best in the sense of shaping my parenting skills...because I know exactly how NOT to treat a child.

Choking up after reading that, Elephant

I don't want to tell my kids and it comes back to if I say it to them then it's all true as I wish so much it wasn't . Also, I don't want my kids sad or feeling sorry for me.

My kids get the result of my shitty life. Decent shoes. Never hungry. Always warm enough. Totally I need their corner. Loved.

*totally in their corner.

Exactly. And you don't have to tell them- or ANYONE- anything you don't want to!

If you ever need a chat, please PM me. I'll take the piss, I'll bang on about random shite- usually involving the color blue for some reason!- but I have a damn good ear too.

💚

There was a mother at my kids school who offered to organise a John Lewis gift for the class teacher for Christmas. She had a real go at a friend who couldn't afford to contribute and planned just to get her child to make a card. I then accidentally found out that her husband's firm participated in a discount card scheme with John Lewis (c.10% I think), so she made a profit on the present.

How do these people even pass thwmselves off as human?

They're obviously half-benk, half-yeti, or some other weird mix!

My Christmas story concerns a flatmate’s CF boyfriend who lived with us rent-free for months while he was ‘between places’ (i.e. freeloading off us) but that’s a whole other story. Anyway, after he finally moved out it was almost Christmas and he offered to cook us all an early Christmas dinner. We assumed this was his way of thanking us for everything we’d done for him.

He was a very keen cook and he loved to potter around in the kitchen for hours (hogging it and using every pan... but again, another story!) He turned up laden with ridiculous quantities of all these lovely ingredients... expensive spices and good wine and the like. Then he tinkered away in there for most of the day and finally produced this meal which was nice, but...

Then he announced that we all owed him £30.

And buggered off without doing any clearing up, taking the leftover ingredients with him.

We were left to clean it all up, which took hours as he’d literally used every pan and utensil in the place and made a horrendous mess.

Basically he had found a way to indulge his hobby and try out some new recipes without having to pay for it or make any mess in his own kitchen.

I know in isolation it might not sound like much but he was honestly such an entitled twat and it was the icing on a very large cake of CFery!