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

Some of these are so sad. As i'm Scottish, it seems appropriate mine should be a 'worst Hogmanay' story. And even more appropriate is should be last Hogmanay when we rang in the shit show that was 2020. My mums husband is a vile alcoholic who has always hated me and my sister and has increasingly severe alcohol induced dementia. Huge pressure on me to host extended family, which I reluctantly agreed but begged my mum not to bring her husband. Of course she did. He was even more drunk and abusive than usual, she got bladdered and would have nothing to do with him, while my DH and I and to his credit my BIL tried to contain him.I had one of those epiphanies when I realised my entire life since I wad 16, every celebration - graduation, wedding, births, birthdays, Xmas had been tarnished by this foul man and my mum had enabled it.

On a lighter note, he went into a care home this year and as we are not allowed to mix, I can see in the new year with just my lovely family. I will still be stuck with my mum getting drunk and passing out on the settee, but I can cope with that. Cheers!

The first time XH and I hosted Christmas at ours, MIL was extremely put out. She had to be the queen of everything, and spent Christmas Eve spinning out a small sherry and prowling about the kitchen sneering and making snide remarks.

XH’s family are of Eastern European descent, and they do this Christmas Eve supper which all the fam have to attend on pain of death, a big spread with lots of shared dishes. We had made such an effort, sourcing all the ‘right’ kinds of black bread and bloody sauerkraut. And then we added some English-type foods that we liked - sausage rolls and such - I may even have made a raised pie. There was fuckloads of food.

The evening was in full swing and people were stuffing their faces and swilling booze merrily, when PIL piped up from behind the small mountain of food that was pinning him to his armchair ‘are there any tomatoes?’ MIL bustled into the kitchen shouting ‘where are the tomatoes? PIL fancies a tomato’.
There were no tomatoes.

There were soused herrings, fish cakes, yards of a very specific and expensive sausage that they had insisted on. There was enough food to feed the Lithuanian army, but there were no tomatoes.
MIL’s eyes glittered. ‘There are no tomatoes? You mean you’ve RUN OUT OF TOMATOES ON CHRISTMAS EVE?’ She slammed back into the dining room with the news, shouting ‘There are NO TOMATOES!’ like Scarlett O’hara at a funeral, and proceeded to let it be known at great length that I had RUINED CHRISTMAS with my TOMATO NEGLIGENCE.

At this point in our relationship, I still cared what they thought, and had wanted to get the Christmas Eve thing right. But not for long...

MIL wasn’t used to city life and was a shit-hot uber-catholic, so when XH popped out to the corner shop on Christmas morn, she was most put out. But thank goodness he did! For Lo! we were able to offer her tomatoes with every meal between Xmas breakfast and Boxing Day lunch. With some extra to offer her for the journey home.

She never did like me much, arf!

So be assured, however crap your Christmas may turn out to be, if you have CHRISTMAS TOMATOES in your fridge then you are totally winning at life. Have a good one!

This is one of those few threads where I read every post! Sorry to everyone that's had awful times.

Our worst was probably when my husband got rota virus from DDs nappy as she had just got the 8 week immunisation and he mustn't have washed his hands properly... He started vomiting the night before Christmas and it went on all night, then the diarrhoea started in the morning. I went off to my parents on my own with unsettled baby (feeding problems) and my raging ptsd from the birth.

Got home to find husband upset because the cat had taken a shit on the baby's sleeping bag. The cat ended up getting diagnosed with anxiety due to the baby. Husband couldn't bring himself to eat what we'd all had on Christmas eve night (curry) for a very long time, even though it wasn't the curry that made him ill, having it come out of both ends like that put him off.

@LippyChick

The first time XH and I hosted Christmas at ours, MIL was extremely put out. She had to be the queen of everything, and spent Christmas Eve spinning out a small sherry and prowling about the kitchen sneering and making snide remarks.

XH’s family are of Eastern European descent, and they do this Christmas Eve supper which all the fam have to attend on pain of death, a big spread with lots of shared dishes. We had made such an effort, sourcing all the ‘right’ kinds of black bread and bloody sauerkraut. And then we added some English-type foods that we liked - sausage rolls and such - I may even have made a raised pie. There was fuckloads of food.

The evening was in full swing and people were stuffing their faces and swilling booze merrily, when PIL piped up from behind the small mountain of food that was pinning him to his armchair ‘are there any tomatoes?’ MIL bustled into the kitchen shouting ‘where are the tomatoes? PIL fancies a tomato’.
There were no tomatoes.

There were soused herrings, fish cakes, yards of a very specific and expensive sausage that they had insisted on. There was enough food to feed the Lithuanian army, but there were no tomatoes.
MIL’s eyes glittered. ‘There are no tomatoes? You mean you’ve RUN OUT OF TOMATOES ON CHRISTMAS EVE?’ She slammed back into the dining room with the news, shouting ‘There are NO TOMATOES!’ like Scarlett O’hara at a funeral, and proceeded to let it be known at great length that I had RUINED CHRISTMAS with my TOMATO NEGLIGENCE.

At this point in our relationship, I still cared what they thought, and had wanted to get the Christmas Eve thing right. But not for long...

MIL wasn’t used to city life and was a shit-hot uber-catholic, so when XH popped out to the corner shop on Christmas morn, she was most put out. But thank goodness he did! For Lo! we were able to offer her tomatoes with every meal between Xmas breakfast and Boxing Day lunch. With some extra to offer her for the journey home.

She never did like me much, arf!

So be assured, however crap your Christmas may turn out to be, if you have CHRISTMAS TOMATOES in your fridge then you are totally winning at life. Have a good one!

Tomatoes IN THE FRIDGE! Give your head a wobble OP. Putting them in the fridge is worse than having none at all

Mine is nothing compared to most of these but for the last 2 years I've been sick on Christmas Day. 2018 from HG and 2019 was norovirus. I'm hoping I'll get to eat my Christmas dinner this year.

One year ds said he felt hot on the way to the panto Christmas Eve, we ended up leaving at the interval as he was feeling terrible. We both came down with the flu that night.

I woke up Christmas Day and seriously suggested postponing it all until Boxing Day. In laws took one look at me and sorted the cooking. I looked so ill they didn’t want me near the food! Ds and I spent the whole day on the sofa under a blanket sweating and shivering. After spending a fortune on food and drink I couldn’t stomach any of it. I have never been so ill in my life. I now have the flu jab religiously.

Well smack my naughty legs, @ouchmyfeet, I am clearly a tomato delinquent and should be banned from Waitrose!

My mother has NPD and on many occassions stolen money from my dad. This year he had been saving £2 coins in a bank, he has plenty of money but it was just a thing to keep going with his change, had about 450 in it. On Christmas morning my dad gave my mum 200 cash for a shopping trip. Then my bf at the time text dad asking to borrow 150 to buy me a phone (because as usual i ended up with nothing to open christmas day from him). My dad decided to take the 150 from his bank as he had nl other cash and didnt want to travel to a cash machine. To his surprise the bank had NO £2 coins a d instead was full of coppers.

Asked my mum did she know anything about it and swore blind she didnt. Then he said well when everyone arrives they are all getting their keys taken off them and asked who stole it. She eventually owned up before we got there and he said well give me the 200 back. She had the cheek to be upset at him that she wasnt getting shopping trip! When we walked in it was frosty, then my dad and bf disappeared then my bf came back and gave me money to buy the phone. I knew at that point he had borrowed off my dad and was really pissed off about it (he never paid him back either, i did).

So after a dinner in silence and us all pissed off, my NPD mother made it so uncomfortable we left, like she was the one that had something done to her, idiot. I later found out all this from my dad.

Travelled what seemed like two days squashed in the back of a car with child and overflowing Christmas presents to visit brother's family who had just emigrated to European country. Ex husband driving didn't utter a single word the whole trip even though sitting next to someone travelling with us. Accommodation organised by brother ran out of bottled gas on the morning of cooking Christmas lunch so nothing to cook with and as day wore on alcoholic SIL got drunker and drunker. Demanded that children not watch Christmas tv because she wanted to listen to music. In our accommodation. Children scattered off to bed. Brother and other guest skulked off leaving us to deal with the nasty bitch, abusing and criticising us. Ex husband eventually escorted her back to their place next door where she nearly cracked her head open slipping on icy paving slabs. Fabulous Christmas. Boxing Day she eventually emerged and carried on as if nothing had happened, oblivious. They lasted less than nine months before returning to UK.

Christmas 2013 was a memorable one. DH and I (pre-parenthood) arrived at my parents’ house on Christmas Eve to discover there had been a power cut and consequently there was no light or heating. Power didn’t return until Boxing Day. A neighbour had to cook the turkey for us (she had two ovens) and it was lukewarm by the time we sat down to eat. The house is large, old and draughty so we all had to huddle round the fire to avoid freezing to death. We then played Cluedo by torchlight. My brother was so depressed and pissed off that he went to bed for the whole afternoon. Never again.

@LippyChick - I have checked, and I’ve got one pack of tomatoes being delivered in the supermarket order on the 21st - will this suffice, or should I order more?

@Calmandmeasured1
I don't think it's a Christmas from hell but this one will go down as the worst. Not seeing family in order to protect each other, so only 3 of us. My DM died this year and my DF no longer here too. Heartbroken

So sorry Calm. Similar here. Just the 3 of us too, to protect everyone. I'm heartbroken not to be able to be with DM - she lives abroad in my home country, we lost her mother to covid earlier this year, and her partner of 30+ years just passed away last week (not covid). She's all alone, indoor mixing of households is discouraged.

Ooo so many from the lady whose heart stoped while sitting across from be over lunch. Thankfully she had some kind of device that restarted it implanted in her chest. But watching her lunch escape through her mouth like some alien from a sci-fi movie wasn’t pretty.

There was the time I was travelling through Asia and did a trek through the jungle for Christmas and ended up with 102 fever on Christmas morning 🤒.

The time my brother thought he was King Kong and decided to climb the Christmas tree while pissed smashing all the presents.

Or the time my fiancé left by brothers house during Christmas lunch because he wasn’t feeling well. Turned out he went from me to the slapper he was shagging behind my back.

O so many to choose from 😂 through it all I still absolutely love Christmas haha

Christmas 2018 with MIL. I had a thread about how awful the whole experience was. She is rude, entitled and has a nasty streak and it was horrendous. She announced after a week she'd stay another week, I freaked out and DH took her home the next day. She's spent two nights in our home since then and that was 18 months later. She's not coming this year.

Last year my marriage imploded and I just wanted Christmas over with. We're rebuilding our relationship now and hoping for a better Christmas this year!

Mine was my first time hosting Christmas. I hate cooking, but my then-DP loved cooking and was to be in charge of getting the dinner ready. Night before, DP went out on a work-do and got so riproaringly hammered that he got home and passed out on the sofa. In the night, he's got up to go to the loo, but in his drunkenness, instead of going to the bathroom, he lifted the sofa cushion and pssed all over the frame of the sofa. He woke up in the morning still drunk (and stinking of pss) and texted me to bring some clean clothes down as he was too hungover to manage the stairs. Not only did I have to make dinner for 8 people by myself, but I also had to scrub p*ss out of the sofa and carpet before our guests arrived because DP was too busy vomiting to do anything else!

Mine is no where near as bad as most of these, but I remember the first year of having my periods (I was about 10) I spent most of Christmas curled up in the fetal position on the floor of my bedroom with severe stomach cramps and very heavy period. As I said not really that bad in the grand scheme of things, but definitely the worst Christmas I ever had.

DS was 12 weeks old, DD 5 years old and DH. All three of them got full blown flu. At times I propped DH up with DD and two sick bowls. A trip to the loo was impossible. No bodies fault but very trying.

Aged 12 Got horrendous tonsillitis about a week before Christmas (thank you bitch of a games teacher for making me run about a school playing field in a tee shirt and pair of gym knickers in the pissing down rain and freezing cold winds because I'd forgotten my games kit whilst you stood there in a massively padded fucking coat and a wooly hat on keeping warm) ended up with oral thrush and gingivitis too. Put one mouthful of xmas dinner in my mouth and burst into tears because it was so painful. I ended up on the settee with ice cream instead and we had a proper Christmas dinner a week or so later once I'd recovered. However I think my miscarriage on Christmas Day 2018 definitely tops that.

@LippyChick Christmas Tomatoes 😂😂👍

A few years ago, my lovely, too-stoical mum came to Christmas lunch, a small one with PIL as well. Mum had been poorly but was determined to eat Christmas lunch.

Inevitably she collapsed at the dinner table, passing out and falling off her chair.

I remember thinking, "oh god my cooking has killed my mum, no one will ever want Christmas dinner again."

Thankfully after a few minutes later she came to, and was fine once I sent her to bed.

We literally never mentioned it again.

The year a friend convinced me to join the local Boxing Day trail hunt.

The meet was awful because lots of anti-trail-hunting people/sabs thought we were fox hunting (!?!) They spooked the horses in the middle of town! They chanted over the speeches, started brawling with the hunt supporters on foot and even the Master lost control of his horse and crashed into the Huntsman, who rode into the crowd by accident! Everyone’s horses were backing into each other, wine glasses went flying and the crowd scattered, people were falling off, total chaos.

So the entire hunt galloped out of town (instead of the sedate trot) and I fell off at the first fence. Or rather my horse refused and I landed on the fence and caused a massive pile up 😳

Then some hunt sabs decided to call hounds off the artificial trail using a decoy horn, so hounds ended up on a main road! Having been pulled off the trail they started rioting! The huntsman ended up dismounting and had a fist fight with a sab (sab was cracking a hunting whip) and the police were called. Luckily they arrested the sabs but the day was ruined and I had sore ribs for weeks!

Obviously this year is going to be rubbish, we're doing a doorstep visit with my family on xmas day and then travelling to in laws and spending two days with them. Its ironic really, they live five hours away and have seen more of ds than my family who live half hour away.
Anyway first xmas dp and i were having my lot over. Its between shifts for my mother and brother so we get stuck in. Obviously dinner is later. Brother still has three hours before shift and starts kicking up a fuss about how there would be no xmas dinner for him and how selfish we all are as himan beings. Mother dives into the booze as she had finished work for the day and proceeded to tell dp exactly how to cook things, not a horrible person but slightly tactless and always believed she was right. Anyway he burnt the pigs in blankets as she'd got on his nerves that much and left them off the table. She started asking where they were as we were serving so he marched into the kitchen and handed her the tray of black incinerated pigs. Oh she never let him hear the end of it. We swore never to have my family over again and invited them the following year as mum had just died from cancer and ds and me had had babies that year. Bittersweet mind, despite it being the Christmas from hell i would rather have that every year than our more normal 3 person xmas which I've always wanted and now kind of don't wanted. And if you can make sense of this you've a better attention span than me.

DrCoconut

My Dad died 2 weeks before Xmas in 1994 & that song is also really poignant for me. I felt at the time it was written especially for him & every year when it's played I get a lump in my throat ☹️

NC for this.

When I was young, we used to have these amazing christmases - my DGM was an old school matriarch and my grandparents’ siblings, all my aunts, uncles, cousins, the various waifs and strays my DGM collected through the year would gather at their house for Christmas. There would be about 30 people with lots of presents, food, games, singing. They were amazing. My Christmas bar was therefore set quite high. She died when I was 10 and it was like Christmas just stopped. We all went through the motions and had some lovely christmases still after that but the heart of it was gone.

Years later, there were the usual disaster Christmases - the one where the oven broke, the one where everyone got flu, but they were all things we could look back on and laugh about.

Which brings us to Christmas 5 years ago. My dad had been diagnosed with aggressive terminal cancer in the autumn and passed away on Christmas Day. I miss him every day.

Once we had DS a few years later, I started trying really hard to artificially create that Christmas feeling so that DS would feel the same way at Christmas that I used to when I was little. Last Christmas Day was when it became clear that DS had autism and SEN, and this year I just can’t. Everything to do with Christmas makes me want to curl into a ball and weep.