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

I've just read more of the thread. I'm so sorry for all of you with traumatic memories associated with Christmas.

This one will be pretty sad. My dad died last month. He was only 62. But I'm so, so sorry for some of you. @Bluntasduck and @CandyLeBonBon, for what it's is worth, I am sorry that happened.

I know I'll be okay cos my dad and I have a very dark sense of humour so had joked a lot (about death etc) in the short time we found out he had left. I may be sad but I'll be cracking up too remembering the laughs we had.

Flew out to Slovakia to see my dad and my step mum with my husband. Was unwelcome and just plain nasty from the start. Ended up flying home Christmas Eve. I was absolutely distraught but this marked the start of me realising I needed to estrange myself. 11 years on I have no contact with my dad. Sadly my mum died when I was 1. I have no contact with my brothers with 1 dying tragically 4 years ago. It's just all around sadness.

When I was a teenager Grandad was living with us after grandma died. He unknowingly had an abcess in his lung that burst in the middle of the night a few days before Christmas. He also had emphysemia so was used to coughing up phlegm, and since he was of that generation, didn't think to wake everyone up. He was blind so he thought he was coughing up phlegm like he sometimes did.
I was woken up by him coughing in the middle of the night, went into the bathroom and saw the coughed up blood all over the toilet and shower curtain. So he was rushed off to hospital.
Poor thing had a very bad lung infection and was delerious because he wasn't getting enough oxygen. He thought he was a young man back in Wales and didn't understand why his immediate family wasn't there. He'd left Wales as a young man and it was the first time I heard him speak in a Welsh accent.
We had a very subdued Christmas and visited him in hospital.
That was 20 years ago and I hadn't thought about it for ages.

Should have added - my mum died on Boxing Day.

I am so so sorry @Bluntasduck and @CandyLeBonBon

When I was a kid every social occasion was a "XX from hell" but Christmas took the prize. My mother suffered from what we called her "wobblers" but they were in fact, panic attacks. She absolutely reveled in the attention of others buzzing around, especially doctors, nurses etc. However relatives and neighbours would do at a pinch. Today we would probably say she suffered from Munchausen.

Well with all the extra cooking, visitors, drink and so on Chrismas was hell on earth and every year she cracked under the pressure. As the oldest of two siblings all the cooking etc fell on me.

When I was 22 I left home and immediately began to think of excuses not to go to my parents for Christmas. I went several years to non christian countries like Morocco, Nepal and India to get away from it all. Then other years I just "said" I was going but enjoyed the few days peace and quiet and time off work.

Once found the cat with its head practically up the Turkey’s arse eating it. We has chicken Kiev’s 😆 This was the same cat who ate tinsel and then shat out purple glittery poo for about a week 💩 💩

@CandyLeBonBon I'm so sorry for your loss. You must be reeling.

@FrankieJones24

When it was my PFB first Christmas 6byears ago

Dp begged us to go to them for christmas dinner even though it wasnt their year
Promised that DH and I could just coo over baby and not lift a finger.

We turned up at the time they said...no one was there but I had a key so let myself in and phoned them...at the pub they said wont be long

An hour later dh walks to the pub to see whats going on...

About an hour after that dh comes back and says they are all drunk... (we should have left then...)

At around 3.00 i realise not a veg is prepped and so call them again to say whats happening with food....oh yes were on our way back can you just crack on and start the veg and get THE TURKEY IN THE OVEN....

We didnt eat till about 6 and everyone was just so drunk...arguments etc. Honestly I know people have had worse but I was only 2 months post birth and felt very let down

Jesus @FrankieJones24 my Christmas from hell is almost exact same, except DH joined them at pub. When FIL came back shit faced MIL insisted he be allowed to hold my tiny 4 week old. I was so young, and they already disliked me, but the awful looks from them like I’d just ruined their Christmas for not allowing him to hold her.

There was no table settings, MIL dumped knifes and forks on coffee table, and SIL had a chest infection and coughed all over my baby 😭

A few year later when dd2 arrived, we had Xmas again with them, I fed her some potato which burned her mouth, I obviously panicked frantically trying to fix it and FIL shouted at me, right at me, slammed his hand down on table 😞 I was a weepy nervous wreck!

Just thought of another although compared to some of these stories it's pretty mild. Spent Christmas Eve at then BF's parents house on a dodgy inflatable mattress. In the morning I bent over to place my breakfast dish in the dishwasher and completely did my back in. Was in absolute agony and couldn't move without lightning bolt pain. Spent the entire day in BF's parents bed mostly in tears while they enjoyed Chrissy downstairs and BF popped up occasionally to see how I was as he got more and more merry. This was in the days before smart phones so I didn't even have any entertainment!

Christmas was always an ordeal with my parents...DM's chance to vent spleen and bile at everyone and expect them to smile sweetly because it's Christmas. My sister and I always catered for dinner and always ended up in tears. One year, sister decided she'd had enough. DM invited just us over to theirs, and it was arranged that we would bring the puddings and snacky things - nuts/chox/etc. Turned up at 11 am to find no delicious smells or bustle of preparations. No table set, no decorations. We sat down to boiled frozen beans and new potatoes. My mother was outraged that she had been expected to cater for guests. She sat at the head of the table, face like a smacked arse, then exploded with "This is the most unChristmassy Christmas I've ever had!" and stomped off to her room where she sobbed for hours. We had always gone to her mum's for Christmas, and granny used to provide a brilliant spread. DM had never had to cook a Christmas dinner in her life, I realised. That was just part of the spectacularly awful celebrations.

Easily last year. In the three weeks leading up to Christmas, Ds/dh/I all came down with norovirus, we recovered, Dm then got it and ended up hospitalised with severe dehydration. We got her home then same Ds developed appendicitis and was hospitalised for three days. THEN I came down with the flu and was so ill on Christmas day I couldn’t stop coughing and vomiting. So I had as much Christmas cheer as an Easter egg. I still managed to do a full Christmas dinner and everyone else enjoyed the day but yeah, on the whole not a Christmas I would ever like to relive.

@CandyLeBonBon. I’m so sorry.

I will be thinking of you and your family during the Christmas season.

I hope you are able to find some peace

My unlamented father died two weeks ago.

My earliest Christmas memory is of him knocking my and my brother's heads together hard and telling us off for fighting on Christmas Day.

We had been playing with my brother's new toy soldiers.😳😁

Bellend.

.,

In laws. It has always been eccentric, spending Christmas with them. This was the first time with children. My god. No one helped with the 3 month old baby, Xmas dinner was always really late and I was starving and exhausted and breastfeeding. Dh reverted to child behaviour and would look after himself first - long showers and spoiled by MIL, while I was the fucking childcare. It wasn’t awful but ....never never never again.

Christmases with my mothers side of the family growing up was always hell.

My aunt always, but always, would end up locking ehrself in the toilet crying ebcause she had not got a gift she wanted. One year her husband (my uncle) grabbed me by the breasts and squeezed aqnd said i was developing- i was at the start of puberty and I pushed him away and my aunt slapped me and called me a stcuk up bitch (and my mother did nothing about it). I recall the adults all fighting and the kids going to the bathroom to hide (and spent the time watching my cousin pop the pimnples of my other cousin). My mother would cry all the way there and all the way home. (3 hour drive away).

Finally my dad put his foot down when I was about 14 and said he would nver endure that again. So my miother would go and I would go to try and protect her from her sisters toxicity.

Ds1 had just arrived and was not a settled baby, I was still struggling to breastfeed while cooking the xmas dinner. Dh is neither a baby person nor a cook and not helping in the slightest.

My Mum had just been diagnosed with cancer which had a 95% liklihood of being fatal and was awaiting her op. The mood was low!

I had put my foot down and not invited my DH's sister and bil and mil&fil as I couldn't cope and dh was miserable that they weren't there.

It was one to forget all round

Funnily enough the in-laws brightened it up by turning up unannounced on boxing day....they are fortunately the sort of people who pitch in and make it better!

We spent Christmas with DH and his family and we all went on holiday and stayed in a house. DH's sister has major jealousy issues and acts like a baby Princess, enabled by PIL. They are then are off with me because SIL is not happy about anything I do that pokes her insecurities. SIL is Golden Child and DH is son they lost could no longer manipulate when he hooked up with me. MIL has to be in charge, control and she knows better than anyone.

So, Christmas Day came. I'd never spent it with them before. No presents for DH and I as in-laws "are on holiday and want to enjoy ourselves and spend what we want". MIL is not British and then decides that "in my country, we don't do Christmas dinner" and so we didn't do a traditional shop for it. On Christmas day we had olives, egg sandwiches, crisps, cheese, and whatever bits of leftover crap were in the fridge.

The day was so dull, so untraditional and I left the room at about 7 pm, went for a bath, and then just went to bed. I called my family from where I was and they were having a wild Christmas and I just cried. My DH was pissed off too but that is what he is used to. I usually host Christmas now but MIL spends the whole time telling me "this is not how we do it in my country". It's really f*cking annoying.

I remember a Christmas when I was a teenager. After we opened our presents my parents went upstairs and had a massive, screaming row. My siblings and I sat down in silence in the living room, looking at one another.

Abusive DH does his best to ruin Christmas every year because he knows how important it is for me.
In 2018 I came back from the hospital late on Christmas Eve, having given birth to DC4 on the 22nd, to find 8 loads of washing awaiting me and nothing made ahead for Christmas lunch.

Pre marriage and kids, aged 19, I stayed in a hotel with DP on Christmas Eve. Breakfast available was either cereal which I didn’t like or continental meats. I had a few pieces of salami and bread, wise DP had tea and toast. Only a couple of hours later I was struck down with the most horrendous food poisoning where I violently vomited every 30 minutes without fail for over 6 hours! I was absolutely wrecked and spent the entire day in bed with a bucket listening to my family downstairs having a nice Christmas. Haven’t touched salami since and that was 30 years ago!

The Christmas after my father died. I was 11. First of all DM decided we weren't having a proper Christmas dinner because she was dieting, so it was turkey and salad which confused the hell out of us, then she had a breakdown in the middle of eating and started sobbing and wailing uncontrollably, we had to go and fetch a neighbour as we didn't know what to do.

I really hated Christmas for a very long time after that, spent years going on holiday to get away from it or otherwise making very little fuss about it, I've only really celebrated it properly since I got married to DH.

The first time I saw Gremlins I identified so much with the Phoebe Cates character!

I have mostly fond memories of Christmas as a child, my DM and DSD hosted a big family day and it was always chaotic with a lot of laughter and fussing over wine and sprouts and gravy.

But DSD died years ago and DM died this May just gone - her birthday was Christmas Day so this year is going to be weird. DH's children are grown up with partners and are all going to their DM's for Christmas Day, then their partner's families for Boxing Day, so we're on our own. We were going to have a Christmas dinner by ourselves but instead we booked us and our camper into a campsite from Christmas Day to NYE, and will spend the festive period with the dog watching movies and eating chocolate in honour of my DM - she would have approved of a tin of Roses for dinner. Happy Birthday mum.

Back in the 90s, went to new boyfriend's house to stay over at Xmas. He came down with awful flu, followed by me, and his parents. Xmas day spent with everyone in bed, too ill to eat! That really was a 'non-Xmas'!