To ask the worst behaviour at Christmas you’ve witnessed by an adult?

[SoniaFouler]

Mine is:

Drunk cousin (24 at the time) shouting and arguing with everyone for most of Boxing Day three years ago, then topped it off when someone told her to stop being stupid by standing up and scraping the entire contents of her dinner plate all over the table and made my aunt cry.

@cptartapp

PIL with pots of money, contributed two £1 cheesecakes from Morrisons for Christmas lunch for ten, plus six mince pies. And took home those mince pies uneaten. Plus spent twice as much on SIL DC presents than our DC which they think I didn't notice

So been there

My parents. We had visited from 300 miles away, staying in a cottage nearby with DSis and BIL. At the time, we had kids, they didn’t. We had 3 young ones excited about a Christmas with family.

On the 23rd I borrowed my sister’s laptop and discovered that she had massively stabbed me in the back by contacting someone who had once been a friend of mine but treated me badly, met this person for coffee and not been complimentary about me in her message.

DSis hit the roof that I had looked at her email (which I know I shouldn’t have done). Declared that she wasn’t going to my parents’ for Christmas if I was there and that if I showed up she would leave.

DDad decided he was going NC with me for looking at my sister’s email.

DM uninvited me. Leaving me to sprint to M&S at 5pm Xmas Eve to get some Xmas dinner stuff to Bung in the oven!

DM seemed to think DH and kids would still be going there without me 🤨. DH wouldn’t, so we dropped the kids off for a couple of hours in the morning, trying to save Christmas for them.

DM then fed the kids so they weren’t hungry for my Xmas dinner, despite being asked not to.

We left Boxing Day and it was some time before we spoke again. It was the latest in a long history of DM appeasing adults at the expense of children’s needs and favouring DSis over me.

If asked, she would still say that all of this was my fault and I ruined Christmas for everyone. And that my version isn’t accurate. Fuck knows what she thinks happened but I realised at some point that I can’t control her narrative or what she tells herself or others.

Couple of years later, I found that she’d written an internet blog all about my failings and how awful it was being my DM. And she still doesn’t understand why that made me go NC for a while. She seemed surprised 🧐

I think as a society it was easier not to do Christmas if choosing, there’s too much pressure for some people.

The last Christmas I stayed at my in laws was awful. MIL hated Christmas but insisted on doing it. We travelled up on Christmas Eve, got stuck in traffic and turned up very late having not eaten since lunchtime. MIL had a massive tantrum that we hadn’t stopped and eaten (years ago nothing was open CE evening), then had another tantrum about us buying food and the waste of money etc.
Christmas Day she refused to get up, refused to open presents, pulled a face at every present. She then locked herself in the kitchen with FIL until dinner time. Try to block DH and me eating or drinking anything all day. We sat in the front room eating biscuits and watching TV alone.
We ate a very late and truly terrible dinner, accompanied by a lecture about ‘gluttony’. We went for a walk later and found a takeaway open. We then watched TV in silence until bedtime. It was so boring.

The worst bit was DH tried to tell me it had been ‘magical’. I told him we wouldn’t go again and so they came to us or we met at siblings. MIL later spent a few xmas’s alone and I think she was truly happy with that! She hated coming to ours but she had to partake and the food was then good!

Not got really that many dramas luckily (saved some for New Years) but recall a couple of years ago when nana was alive (mum's mum) she'd not been the best of mum's due to having my DM in 1941 - war years and had to send her away to boarding school partly due to severe illness when she was very young and partly as nana had her own business and was quite busy. There were other dramas later on in life when Nana discovered she preferred (I think she reverted back though!) women to men after being married 3 times and she had wild parties with her new 'friends' which were a bit shocking apparently when DM visited!

Nana rang DM's house - several times over the years, once I was visiting over Christmas and spent ages just crying down the phone and saying sorry, had had one too many brandies too many and her friends/lesbian live in lover were trying to calm her down. Thing is - we had Nana and her lover over for Christmas to DM's house and once to mine when I hosted with then boyfriend so we hardly left her at home!

Luckily my DM was very nice about it all but on one occasion it did upset her that her DM was upset but also that she, the DD was also upset because it wasn't all a bed of roses in their life.

Oh, there was also the Christmas when my DM brought a garden table into the house because we were too many for the dining table, and sat me at the other end of the room with all the small DC and my Grandmother who had dementia and needed feeding! Whilst DParents, DH, DSis and BIL enjoyed their Christmas dinner. I laugh about this now but it bloody hurt at the time!

DSis did have an attack of conscience and offer to join me but the other adults sulked so she stayed put.

DH didn’t offer to move, the bastard!

My Dad had passed away 2 months before Christmas. My DH’s father phoned him to demand he come home for a “family” Christmas. When he said no and that he needed to be there for me and my Mum, his mother called and cried down the phone to guilt trip him into it.

Instead of standing his ground, he went for Christmas Eve and came home halfway through Christmas Day because he knew they’d give him more grief than me. Never forgiven him for that. I remember having to hold my Mum for hours on the sofa while she sobbed, needing my husband and some emotional support and him being with his parents and sisters having the perfect family Christmas.

Oh - got another one - DB and his DW (SIL) - SIL's DP's host Christmas a lot and they always go there (in SW England) from London most years. DB's MIL has had on a couple of occasions times when she gets very upset and storms out of the house (she has a DH who's a paraplegic and stroke recoverer) after a family row.

there was one time though when family friends stayed - we all went into the nearest city for Xmas shopping, lunch out, rugby etc - SIL did what she used to do a lot - had a row with her DM and stormed off but also left me and the female family friend without saying a word! So I'm stuck there, witnessed this behaviour before, sort of had to tactfully explain to the family friend and then find SIL. And because I'm DB's DSis I can't really be unhappy or angry about this either. Luckily AFAIK, SIL has matured since having her DS 3 years ago.

Many years ago I went to my P.I.L for boxing Day lunch. My M.I.L had also invited her mum and her stepmum.
Her mum and stepmum got into a row during lunch and several insults were hurled while my M.I.L desperately tried to calm them down.
Eventually my F.I.L slammed his cutlery down and told them both to leave.
The next thing we knew the two women were brawling on the front lawn.
It's quite a sight to see two 80 odd year old women going at it like prize fighters, bloomers on display, the lot while my poor M.I.L desperately tried to separate them.
Even the police looked stunned when they turned up, courtesy of a neighbour at the sight of two old ladies brawling.

My in-laws really shine at Christmas!
Over the years a few lovely examples include:

Buying me a dress three sizes too big from a shop called Bonne Marche. Not to be outdone by the flannel pyjamas four sizes too small!

Every year without fail they buy me perfume I am allergic to, conveniently it’s SIL’s favourite and she takes it off my hands!

The last time they came here for Christmas they arrived on the 22nd.. they were expected on the 23rd. Complained dinner wasn’t ready.. odd that considering we were going out with friends. We offered for them to join us and they refused, instead they cooked and ate two of the steaks purchased for the following night.

That’s Christmas Day as I was bringing food to the table with DH FIL filled his plate with meat and potatoes, scoffed it at record speed then got up to relax in the lounge before I had even filled my plate. He asked if the kettle was on!!!

Thought of yet another. I was 13. My sister was 16 and heavily pregnant. She’s a horrible human being at the best of times (recently told her now adult daughter she wished she was dead and described in graphic detail how it should be done. No idea why my niece is the kindest human being imaginable) who’d spent her life bullying me and generally beating up people if they looked at them wrong.

Anyway this particular Christmas I’d been given a CD player and my sister decided she wanted it. I said no and that was a red rag to a bull and she proceeded to pull me across the floor and kick the crap out of me while everyone watched. I couldn’t defend myself because she was pregnant. Afterwards my mother smirked and told me it served me right for not sharing.

Urgh families suck.

Not dreadful as such, but definitely the oddest Christmas Day was spent at my DB's with his (now) ex-wife.

On Christmas morning, me, Mum and DH drove 130 miles to their house. Ex SIL was busy carefully gift wrapping presents for 6 week old nephew It took her hours. She refused all help in the kitchen as she was such a control freak and didn't even put the turkey in until late afternoon.

No snacks or other food was offered. We were ravenous. Then had to sit through watching ex SIL unwrap the same presents for newborn nephew that she'd only just wrapped a couple of hours earlier

Finally, finally sat down to eat 'Christmas Lunch' at 8.30pm, by which point I'd gone past the point of feeling hungry and just felt very nauseous.

Christmas when I was 5 and I assume being a 5 year old at Christmas at the dinner table and DF hit me in the face with a spatula. DB who was a 4 year at university picked me up, picked up his suitcase, got us on a plane back to the town his school was in (2 hour plane ride). I don't remember much of the trip after that but I was home again before too long.

God some of these are hilarious but many are so sad. For those of you who had shitty Christmases as children I really hope you enjoy it now and have managed to put the crap behind you.

@Buzzer3555

My mum got pissed and broke all my daughters Christmas presents then shat in her bed.

Her own bed, or your daughter's bed?

Either way, that's pretty bad behaviour.

Not necessarily ‘badly behaved’ but my Father died when we were in our early teens very close to Christmas.

My mum was adamant we were going to carry on and have a ‘good family Christmas’ despite us being utterly broken. We went through the motions in the morning with my mum breaking down sobbing at various points of the day and my sister and I just sat watching having no clue what to do. I remember the pain of desperately trying to be happy so she wouldn’t be so sad.

My grandparents arrived in the afternoon, never mentioned my dad, complained the Turkey was dry and went stonily silent every time she cried. It was awful and I went to bed before 8pm.

My grandparents also ate all the pigs in blankets the bastards.

@Cocolapew

That would be me. Newly married and Mil throw a major tantrum that we had to spend our first Christmas with her. Neither me nor DH actually like his parents. We trudged through the snow to be met at the door by my SIL and her boyfriend. Mil and Fil had worked nightshift and were in bed. So we started drinking. Sil was in charge of making vegetable soup as a starter. It was in the pressure cooker and we couldn't figure out how to use it and the soup ended up exploding all over the ceiling and us. By the time they woke up and we started to eat the 4 of us were legless. I had to keep leaving the table to boke. Later we were playing Monopoly and FIL started shouting that he couldn't hear Emmerdale and kicked the board around the living room. We left at this point and I went upstairs for a wee and fell down the stairs splitting my trousers. It took us ages to walk home in a bloody blizzard pissed as farts and my arse hanging out of my breeks.

@WhenZoomWasJustAnIceLolly

Did you mean save Xmas for the dc or your parents? I'm astounded you let them go after your parents had treated you so appalling.
That's extreme on their part.

@Maddiemoosmum0203

Mine is being raped for the first time by my awful step father I was 11 we had a pretty nice Christmas my mum always went all out it was magical I remember my baby sister was 3 and she got a knitted Rosie and Jim teddy’s I got a Walkman and take that tape! 93ish we when’s to my grandmas had a fab Christmas Day with all the cousins etc but that night I will never forget and having to describe that to the jury 4 years ago was almost as bad These days we go to my mums for Christmas but I can’t go upstairs as she still lives in that house

Oh Jesus, how beyond fucking awful. You were so brave to face court and I really hope he was punished to the fullest extent of the law (I was going to say got the punishment he deserves, but I don't think that would be legal...). to you.

ElfontheShelfisLookingatYou

I meant that I was trying to save Christmas for the dc. Didn’t give a rats arse about my parents at that point. Actually, that’s not true, I was devastated. But I was trying not to let the dc’s Xmas be ruined or let them know anything was amiss. They were young enough to cover it and to say ‘I’m just going to stay here to get things ready’.

Bloke entered house, in disguise, went in kids’ rooms, left a load of tat on the ends of their beds then laughed about it hohoho

@Maddiemoosmum0203

Mine is being raped for the first time by my awful step father I was 11 we had a pretty nice Christmas my mum always went all out it was magical I remember my baby sister was 3 and she got a knitted Rosie and Jim teddy’s I got a Walkman and take that tape! 93ish we when’s to my grandmas had a fab Christmas Day with all the cousins etc but that night I will never forget and having to describe that to the jury 4 years ago was almost as bad These days we go to my mums for Christmas but I can’t go upstairs as she still lives in that house

I am so sorry, I hope the bastard got what he deserved.

Some of these are so sad. I’m sorry for all your shitty Christmases.

MIL wanted to sleep in our bed and not the perfectly good guest bedroom. Played up big time and insisted on our room as we have a loo in our room (I always get up in the night a couple times along with the kids in the next room) she apparently had suddenly started getting up in the night and now needed our room. DH said no, he was not giving up his bed. So she arrived with presents and a bucket to piss in during the night. DH told her to put the bucket straight back in her car 😂😂Of course she never went once in the night!!! 😂😂

@RaPumPumPumPum

I’d quite like to hear the other people’s side of some of these stories as I just don’t believe people physically attack their family members on Christmas Day ‘for no reason whatsoever’

Do you believe that people attack family members on other days or do you just think that domestic violence and family violence always has a reason?