Tales of family Christmas from hell?

[HTH1]

Following on from the guests from hell thread, please tell me about your worst family Christmas from hell. Hopefully that will make me happier about it just being a v small Christmas this year (all family away or dead) and would love to hear your experiences

Christmas of 2008, I had had a miscarriage in the June of that year and was 14 weeks pregnant again by Christmas Day, when I started bleeding, heavily. I was devastated and convinced I was going to miscarry again. My mother proceeded to scream at me when DH and I were leaving to go to A&E (as instructed by the midwives on the ward). We hadn't told mother about the first miscarriage, or many reasons, but did say I needed to go to hospital because I was bleeding very heavily.

Luckily I didn't miscarry but bled all the way through the pregnancy, it was horrendous and I was in and out of hospital throughout. DD2 is now 11 .

The Christmas of 2009 was equally horrendous as DD2 was rushed into hospital struggling to breathe 2 days before Christmas Day, she was 5 months old and was in hospital for until the new year. They allowed us home for a couple of hours Christmas morning, but we all spent the majority of the day in hospital. I'm so glad they let us have DD1 with us on Christmas Day in the hospital as my mother wouldn't help and again screamed at us, this time because we were shit parents apparently. Didn't stop her from using DD2 being seriously ill in hospital to get herself lots of sympathy from all and sundry.

Among lots of other reasons I now have no contact at all with my mother and never, ever will again.

My dad got arrested on Christmas Eve a few years ago, my mum then went on a bender so I had to drive 10 hours while 7 months pregnant to collect my little sister.

@PrincessNutNutRoast

Father sat at the head of the table like Lord Muck, ordering my mother in and out of the kitchen and snapping at everyone. Eventually started screaming at my mother over something, I shouted back, massive screaming match ensued, guests made hasty excuses and left beforr main was finished. Father disappeared upstairs, refusing to come down until we had all gone up to apologise to him, mother was wibbling all over the place enabling and encouraging his shit while siblings and I said we were quite happy for him to stay up there and brother made a point of finishing Dad's meal since he was saying he was never going to rejoin us. Siblings and I had dessert together while my mother continued wibbling around and enabling Dad rather than telling him to go fuck himself like she should have. Siblings and I cleared everything away and proceeded to get drunk on all the wine that parents and guests weren't going to drink while Dad screamed at Mum upstairs about how shit she was, how shit we were (especially me) and why he was the only righteous person in the family. Boxing Day rolled around, father was stalking around the house refusing to speak to anyone and I was wondering whether it was possible to wire up the fairy lights to just burn our whole fucking dysfunctional toxic house to the ground.

Fa la la la la la la la la.

That could have been written by one of my 3 sisters! jesus wept i thought my family was the only one that did that at christmas!

First Christmas with now DH when we had just started dating. He'd briefly met my parents and brother but no one else. Big family gathering, around 15-20 extra guests. DH and I walk in, DH in his motorbike leathers, covered in tattoos, bearded, long hair, 17 years older than me. That went down well with the rather posh paternal grandparents and religious and generally disapproving maternal grandparents...

Didn't help that my great aunt walked into the wrong bedroom that night and found us in a rather cosy situation in my childhood bed...

One to lighten the mood a bit, from DH not me. One christmas eve DH was staying at his first serious girlfriend's. Her father got him drunk on whisky and he passed out on the sofa. At some point in the night he woke up, unsteady on his feet, fell in to the christmas tree then threw up on the family dog who then ran around spreading sick all over the room. The next day was exceeding uncomfortable - DH feeling like death, and girlfriend's parents not speaking to each other as her mum blamed her dad for the whole episode

Not my experience (thankfully), but years ago I read in a magazine a heartbreaking article written by a wronged wife. She said that one of the most hurtful things of all was when she discovered that at Christmas her husband had given his OW an expensive piece of jewellery, whilst his gift to his wife was a new bread bin for the kitchen.

@Bluntasduck

As a teenager I was expected to "entertain" my father over the Christmas period to pay him back for how hard he worked all year to pay for it

I really hope that isn't what it sounds.

That could have been written by one of my 3 sisters! jesus wept i thought my family was the only one that did that at christmas!

Ah, only two daughters here I'm afraid, and my brother is sadly no longer with us, so I can't be your sibling. But pathetic high five to a fellow product of nutbag parents.

After these tiresome dramas, my mother liked to get us all around the table so we could do it all again "talk it out". I spent much of my adolescence feeling very very tired and it wasn't until I left home that I realised why.

The last one I spent with my narc mother and my wimp of a father and my slut of a sister. You can feel the love right?

I hadn't wanted to go at all. I had left home 2 years before. Was practically living with DP very happily after meeting 7 months before as his Landlady was driving him mad (we laugh about it now, 20 years later). He decided not to go visit his family and said he would cook himself a little roast and watch films until I got back.
I got there at 10am at my mother's insistence. I was meant to stay until 8pm. I lasted until 2pm and I think only the thought of my dad's nice food made me last that long.
I had found out I was pregnant just before, sadly I miscarried but my sister had found out and couldn't wait to "grass me up" to my parents.
My mum then launched into a diatribe against unmarried mothers and what will the neighbors think and I had ruined Christmas. You'd think I was 13 the way she was banging on. I'd had no intention of telling her so I didn't exactly ruin Christmas. My sister had heard off a mutual friend.
Anyway, my slutty smug sister is sitting there, enjoying the floor show and I said, well you'd know all about shagging wouldn't you love, after all you were in a bush last weekend with (name of boy). She went white. Mum went crackers.
Somehow it was my fault. I should've stopped her (I wasn't even there). It was absolutely hilarious.
Dad then comes in and does his usual pussy whipped act of having my mum blame him and his family for us being a pair of sluts apparently. Dad just looks defeated. I said in the midst of it all, it's about time we spiked her drink isn't it, she'll be pissed as usual by 3pm.
Queue even more crazy shouting about how dare you lie, so I told her that we all hated her so much we used to take it in turns to spike her coffee and onwards with as much booze as possible because we couldn't actually have a nice time until she had been carried upstairs.
It was at that point she threw a plate at me so I said, must be going and got the fuck out of there. I could hear the kick off in the street.
I know it sounds awful but that woman abused me mentally for years and my dad did fuck all as he was scared of her. I was constantly told I wasn't good enough, that my sister was better and prettier and more intelligent than me. It was pay back and I knew I was never going back there.
When I got back DP opened a bottle of wine and said think you need this.

1994 was crap. We spent it at the hospital where my grandad was on his death bed. Every time I hear "stay another day" I'm taken back to that Christmas and that hospital ward. Grandad passed away a month later having made it home against all expectations and then gone back in. He was one of those really tough but nice old people and he was so dignified and courageous that last month.

My worst Christmas was almost farcicial. I was 10 and helped out an elderly lady in our street. When I went around to say hello and happy Christmas on Christmas morning, she didn't answer the door. I hung around a little while until her daughter arrived. She was dead. I was very upset and when I got home, I wanted some comfort. My dad, a chronic alcoholic, was screaming at my mum in the kitchen over some dinner bullshit. I bypassed them and went upstairs to play with my hamster - who was stone cold in her cage, with the TV plug nearby.

Our worst one was the year of the Nora virus ( not sure of spelling). One of my daughters started with it 2 weeks before christmas and despite numerous visits to out of hours doctors and 111 they just kept saying she should stay home and would be fine without any treatment. In the end she was so ill she was delirious and she had to have an ambulance in and be put on a drip because of severe dehydration.
Meanwhile second daughter started a few days before christmas and she was at home throwing up every few minutes as well.
I stayed in hosp on Christmas Eve until early evening by which time dd1 was stabilising a bit . Then i got home to dd2 sobbing on the sofa because she was so ill and she had just watched the last ever episode of the BBC series Merlin where Arthur dies. It was her favourite programme and she was heartbroken . She couldn't keep anything down either and I was up most of the night with her.
Christmas day itself was spent with me visiting dd1 to shower her and clean her up in hospital then coming back to dd2 who had just vomited everywhere again. She was bathed and cleaned as well which took the rest of the morning. No present opening went on at all.
And then the rest of the festive period was spent with both girls chucking up in buckets every thirty minutes or so all day and night.
We couldn't cook anything because the smell made them vomit so Christmas dinner was crackers and cheese for the rest of us.
Honestly it was the most miserable few weeks made all the worse by knowing we were missing out on our absolute favourite time of year.

Not the worst, but when we were first together OH and I told my parents we would be eating dinner at home and then Go to theirs afterwards. Huge Christmas dinner afterwards and a taxi arrived to take us to my parents, where another huge dinner awaited us! Hysterics of rage from my mum when we said we had already eaten. (She was hugely dysfunctional and hysterical all the time).

On arriving home there was a huge mound of washing up still to be done
Anyone seen the vicar of Dibly episode, when she had three Christmas dinners!

Bluntasduck

As a teenager I was expected to "entertain" my father over the Christmas period to pay him back for how hard he worked all year to pay for it

I really hope that isn't what it sounds.

So do I...

My mum got rushed into hospital on Christmas night 2 years ago then died a few days later

Fairly traditionally, the menfolk went to the pub at lunchtime on Christmas Day, when the women prepared the feast at home.

When they arrived back late, roaring drunk, my mum saw red mist and poured all the booze down the sink. My BIL got violent and punch at framed picture, getting cuts on his fist.

One to remember.

My DH was awaiting "big guns" cancer treatment. He was neutropenic and on Christmas Day got a sepsis infection. I had to call 999 and the ambulance came and whisked him away. I stayed at home worrying......

That was the Christmas from hell.

Huge hugs to @CandyLeBonBon and @Bluntasduck.

Our worst Christmas was probably the one just after my lovely MIL died of pancreatic cancer. She died in the second week of December, and because we needed to give people notice to come to the funeral, and because the church was so busy with pre-Christmas services, the only day we could have her funeral was December 23rd. Dh, DBIL and the dses had to go to the church the night before, and move several Christmas trees (from the village Christmas tree competition) that were displayed in the church. After the funeral, DBIL came back up to Scotland with dh, the dses and me, to spend Christmas.

Christmas was a very quiet day that year, but it did help that we were all together.

The second worst was nowhere near as bad. The dses were still quite small, but ds1 was old enough to tell the time, so we left them a drink and a biscuit downstairs, and told them that they could come up at 7.30am (but NO earlier), if we weren't already downstairs, and wake us up - and then we'd all go to see if Father Christmas had been (we left stockings by the fireplace in the front room).

On Christmas morning, by some miracle, dh and I were still asleep at 7.30am, when the three boys trooped in and ds1 said "Happy Christmas mummy, happy Christmas daddy - and I've been sick THREE TIMES!!" The poor boy didn't realise that being ill was a perfectly acceptable reason to wake your parents early!

He spent the rest of the day in a cycle of vomiting, sleeping, waking up and wanting something to drink, opening some of his presents, and then vomiting again. Dh was doing his best to ride herd on the other two boys, and took them to church, whilst I stayed at home, alternating between nursing ds1, and cooking Christmas dinner. We kept the day going as well as we could, for the other two, but dh was coming down with whatever ds1 had, so he was feeling ropy, and I was busy cooking roast goose with all the trimmings and nursing ds1, so the younger two were able to spend the entire day mainlining all the chocolate they had been given - and when it came time to eat Christmas dinner, ds1 was asleep again, having just thrown up, ds2 and ds3 were full to the gunnels with chocolate, dh didn't feel like eating anything, so the only person who ate any Christmas dinner was me. I'd have been better off saying Sod the cooking and having goose McNuggets!!

We were supposed to be driving over to see my sister and her dh on Boxing day, but dh was too ill to go, so we had to postpone - that was the silver lining, tbh - dsis and her dh were not at all good with small children, and expected them to be seen and not heard, so it was always fun visiting. In fairness to them, the first time we took the boys to visit their new house, ds1 went rolling around on the lawn, and rolled in fox poo, which wasn't his best impression of an angelic child!!

@namechangedtoaskaQ are you still married to him and part of their family?

My childhood Christmases were not fun. I was an only child and no cousins. We weren't a fun family so no games or anything. My dad always went to the pub on Xmas day and came home drunk. He's a horrible drink, argumentative and nasty. He would ruin every Xmas dinner and my mum would be a bag of nerves. I remember he threw his plate of food once Hes not allowed to spend Xmas with us, now that I have children as I won't allow it. Although he has got better as he's got older.
our Christmas's now are much more enjoyable but again my kids have no cousins so no large family gatherings etc.

6 years ago my nana died on boxing day which was awful.
And when I was a teenager my other nana was very poorly in hospital and we went to visit her on Xmas day in intensive care. Was horrible

I've had some shocking Christmas/New Years but I still love Christmas as I don't blame the event it's just shit timing.

17 first time going away with a boyfriend went to Cornwall with him and some friends stayed in a pub on the moors on the first night he split up with me and went off with some girl in the pub. I was stuck for 3 days as no way of getting home. I remember on a wall outside the pub smoking and thinking it can't get worse than this on New years eve

Move forwards 5 years and I'm 8mths pregnant with my daughter and my elderly MIL is terminally ill with MND. She collapsed at home on the 23rd December and my dad in law (70+) was disabled so we drove over and took her to the hospital as no ambulances available. The next morning the phone rang and I just knew . They didn't want to tell my FIL over the phone so they phoned us. We had to drive 15 miles to see him and tell him face 2 face. As we arrived he was struggling out the door with her Christmas presents to go and see her in hospital.....that was the sadest conversation ever. They had been married 50 years

Last one was 10 years ago when my ex-husband chose Christmas Eve to pop to the pub and never came home he moved in with the woman he had been having an affair with ( I had no clue) I was having a breakdown phoning hospitals and the police thinking he had been in an accident, his adult Children didn't even know where he was. A friend phoned me in the afternoon and said her husband had just seen him at the pub with XxxX one of my friends from work. So I lost my husband and work friend all in one day.

But you know what? I still adore Christmas

@CandyLeBonBon I'm so very sorry for your loss, I can't imagine how broken you must feel. Would you like to tell us about your brother?

@Bluntasduck that is one of the most awful things I've ever read on here. I'm so sorry that happened to you, that was utterly appalling. I'm really impressed that you have managed to move on with your life and access the support you need. I hope the years since have been kinder and you are happy now

to everyone who has suffered bereavement, abuse and just generally shit times.

@MissPinkCakeyBun what an absolute TWATBADGER your ex is!

@Slightlyunhinged

When I was a teen, the whole family went down with a sickness bug on Christmas Eve. Mum had forgotten to defrost the turkey and even if she had, none of us felt like eating it. My Christmas lunch was boiled egg and soldiers. Mind you, it might

When I was 17 I woke up on Christmas Eve with gastric flu, and all I ate for Christmas lunch was 1 slice of turkey; it's the only Christmas I've ever lost weight!