Not exactly from hell, but very sad - the year my mother had phoned in tears on 10th December (date etched on my brain) to say the GP had told her my father was dying.
He died exactly a month later.
It was a sad, subdued Christmas, but we didn’t let the memory overshadow future ones - it was the last thing my cheerful, jolly DF would ever have wanted.
A hellish Christmas Eve was the one when, shortly before I was going to drive the 60 miles to fetch her, my mother decided she’d really rather stay quietly at home instead.
OK, if that was what she wanted, but I went anyway, to take her presents and some nice food.
Trouble was, by then she was in the earlier stages of dementia, so not long after I was home again there was an utterly furious phone call - what was she doing all on her own on Christmas Eve? I was the worst daughter in the world, she was cutting me out of her will, etc. etc.
Useless to remind her that she hadn’t wanted to come - she simply couldn’t remember.
I was in tears for hours.
Luckily, by the time I phoned her on Christmas Day - in fear and trepidation - she’d forgotten all about it. Talk about phew!