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.

No where near as bad as some of those I have read so far but here is mine... My Grandad's tooth fell out while we were all eating Christmas dinner. He secretly took it out of his mouth and then started playing with it on the lid of the cranberry sauce my Mum had placed on the table - I think to try and queue attention.

I hate anything to do with teeth (I think this applies to a good proportion of people!). I felt panicky - my ears started to ring, I could feel heat rise from the tips of the toes upwards and ended up running out only to end up fainting. Felt rubbish for the rest of the day. My Grandparents have never been invited for dinner by my Mum since.

I don't understand why he couldn't just slink off and put it in the bin as soon as it happened without saying anything!

My sister punched me at the Christmas dinner table because I was taking the piss out of her 😂. We were a very jokey family & this would normally never have been an issue but she was a very hormonal 17 year old at the time & we had a tough few years with her mood swings. We all laugh about it now 😂

@DillonPanthersTexas

Not so much a Christmas day dust up but extreme CF behaviour in the supermarket. I saw a women start taking packs of sausage meat out of an unattended trolley and place it in her own before quietly moving on. It was a few days before Christmas so lots of basic staples were missing and folk were getting desperate but witnessing the trolley theft really annoyed me. The trolley owners were a couple of pensioners and I just thought of my folks being ripped off. Completely childish behaviour on my part but I followed the CF women around the aisles and sure enough at one point she left her trolley unattended in the 'world foods' aisle and I swapped the sausage meat with a few bags of bombay mix and returned the sausage meat to the original owners.

I love you

@DysmalRadius

When I was about 22, my younger sister got a polaroid camera for Christmas a took a picture of me that wasn't particularly flattering. I laughed it off, but my dad said 'You've always been a funny looking thing. When you were younger I was always embarrassed as you looked like you had Down's Syndrome.' Just awful on every possible level.

Apparently he wonders why we are NC...

Omfg, that's the most shocking, nasty thing I've ever heard. Don't blame you for nc.

@Blueblossombush

Mine was Boxing Day-the kids and I where never invited for Christmas as it was ‘family only’ but my brothers and girlfriends/wives where invited to prove a point

My bloody evil mother summoned me and my children to come round to her house for a cheese board

It was me,my 3 brothers my dad,three girlfriends/wives and my children

I wasn’t keen on any of the cheeses on offer but tried to make the most of it

I picked up a knife to cut some soft garlic cheese and my brother went mental

It was the ‘wrong’ knife and i was worse than a murderer for using it as everyone knew it was the cheddar knife (they where all from the same shitty set of knives)

I offered to wash it and that sparked it all off

It ended in my mother punching me (I ended up with a cracked cheekbone,a bloody nose and two black eyes),my dad screaming at my kids who where sobbing,one brother had to be pulled off me,another brother went for me with a carving knife (thankfully he’s a massive bloke and I’m a much slimmer female so I could move faster) the third brother was stoned and sat in the middle of all this,just scoffing his cheese and the wives and girlfriends pushing me out of the door,screaming at me never to come back as I was a ‘trouble maker’ and that they where going to phone the police for me assaulting them! (I didn’t pay a finger on anyone)

The year later,no invite (I’d gone very lc at this point) so I took the kids to maccys as a treat and we had a mooch round the sales

My mother hit the roof-I wasn’t to go to hers as my brothers had spoken,but I wasn’t to take my own kids out for a treat either-I just went nc at that point

They will never understand why I went nc and I now spend Christmas with my partners family (who have never punched me nor attacked me with a knife)

Fucking hell 😲

@GoGoGretaDoll

My stepdad. It was the first year I'd been allowed up for midnight mass so I must have been 8ish? Still very young. We came back from mass, got jammies on and I was allowed to open a present, so this must have been about 1.30 am. He then grabbed me and started tickling me, which he did all the time and I hated. It never went further than that but it was borderline inappropriate and all about control. Fucker. Anyway, I said something like 'put me down, this is the worst Christmas I've ever had' and he literally picked me up, put me outside the front door and locked the door.

I started running up the road towards my grandmother's, my mum eventually caught up with me and brought me back to the house. Thinking about how far I got, it only hits me now that she had to argue with him to get the door open. And he probably hit her because that's what he did.

Anyway, he then spent the whole of Christmas Day sulking in his bed. God I hate him.

Oh goodness, I'm sorry

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!
I'd thank them sweetly and take it home, then wrap it as her present the following year!

A combination of these would make a perfect Christmas film!

The comedy ones obviously!

@Blueblossombush

Mine was Boxing Day-the kids and I where never invited for Christmas as it was ‘family only’ but my brothers and girlfriends/wives where invited to prove a point

My bloody evil mother summoned me and my children to come round to her house for a cheese board

It was me,my 3 brothers my dad,three girlfriends/wives and my children

I wasn’t keen on any of the cheeses on offer but tried to make the most of it

I picked up a knife to cut some soft garlic cheese and my brother went mental

It was the ‘wrong’ knife and i was worse than a murderer for using it as everyone knew it was the cheddar knife (they where all from the same shitty set of knives)

I offered to wash it and that sparked it all off

It ended in my mother punching me (I ended up with a cracked cheekbone,a bloody nose and two black eyes),my dad screaming at my kids who where sobbing,one brother had to be pulled off me,another brother went for me with a carving knife (thankfully he’s a massive bloke and I’m a much slimmer female so I could move faster) the third brother was stoned and sat in the middle of all this,just scoffing his cheese and the wives and girlfriends pushing me out of the door,screaming at me never to come back as I was a ‘trouble maker’ and that they where going to phone the police for me assaulting them! (I didn’t pay a finger on anyone)

The year later,no invite (I’d gone very lc at this point) so I took the kids to maccys as a treat and we had a mooch round the sales

My mother hit the roof-I wasn’t to go to hers as my brothers had spoken,but I wasn’t to take my own kids out for a treat either-I just went nc at that point

They will never understand why I went nc and I now spend Christmas with my partners family (who have never punched me nor attacked me with a knife)

I feel a certain kinship with you. And as horrible as my family gatherings were, I think you win.

I'm glad you went NC and can appreciate other family experiences with new traditions

xxx

First Xmas with bf. He hadn't spent Xmas with his parents for years but agreed we'd go Xmas eve and leave Xmas day evening as we had friends coming for boxing day lunch. His DM was quite clear on what the plan was but without mentioning it to us had told all her friends that we were staying for a week.

Late Xmas afternoon we were discussing how late we could leave it to travel the couple of hours back to our house. BF's DM tells us that we're not going anywhere as she's told everyone we're staying the week. Explain that this was never the plan and because (as she knows) we have people coming for boxing day we have to go. She storms upstairs and goes into full meltdown. BF's siblings keep coming and telling us that we have really upset her and must stay, we've made her ill etc. I suggested to BF that I would go home and he could make his own way back when his DM stopped tantrumming but he insisted on coming with me.

Siblings were all upset, we had ruined Xmas for everyone all because she hadn't bothered to tell us what she had planned and we didn't just roll over and do what she wanted. My card was marked from that day on. Awful woman.

My DSis showed up either plastered or on some kind of medication. Proceeded to shout at DN (her DD) until she cried then made my DD cry by accusing her of stealing a present from DN (she hadn't). The whole day was hideous and guaranteed I'm never doing Christmas at my mother's again.

@Buzzer3555

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

Sweet baby Jesus, that's grim

@Jacaranda75

Every year without fail my Mum’s DP would get drunk, throw the Christmas tree out of the window and smash all my presents.

I’ve never told anybody that before.

💔

Used to have awful Christmases until I got married. My DM and DB would always get pissed and start a family row, some years worse than others. I would usually end up in tears in my room. It was always my fault apparently. First Christmas we were married I insisted we have it just us 2. I was pregnant so they'd all be there every other Christmas cooing over the grandchildren. My ILs made us have another full dinner on Boxing Day that year which was a bit heavy going. Then 27 years of fairly big happy family Christmas days have followed, up to 14 for lunch and then gradually tailing off. The DC are adults now, the GPs and the aunt and uncle have all passed, the last being my DF this October. We are going out for lunch this year, can't face having it at home with the empty place where my dad would have been chatting and laughing. He loved our happy peaceful row-free Christmases as much as I did.

My mother pretty much ruined any happy memories of Christmas for me.

Started with the Christmas tree, I always did it wrong and had gaps. She was very Monica from friends about it. I soon stopped getting excited about having the tree up and dreaded it. I always had to do it, only to be told over and over again what I did wrong.

No matter what I bought her, she was never satisfied, it was either too expensive, too cheap, not what she asked for etc. I remember as a child saving up and buying an lovely photo frame to put a picture of mum and dad that was in a much cheaper frame. She opened it and said “Oh, why did you use that photo of us, it’s hideous.” When I told her it was already up in a cheaper frame she said she didn’t remember and I must be making it up. I was gutted as I had saved pocked money for months.

Christmas dinner would always be a nightmare, she wouldn’t let anyone help because we would do it wrong, then get stressed out and snapped at everyone making them feel uncomfortable.

I’ve moved away and no longer have to spend Christmas with them. So much happier.

@TrickorTreacle

Reading the first 4 pages of this thread, I have come to the following conclusion: The in-laws (MIL, FIL etc) have a lot more to answer to than other family members!!!

As for me, I haven't seen any family drama. I guess it's because we never invite any in-laws around. Perfect!

Had a few funny works Christmas dos though:

• one year where a colleague was having an affair and made no effort to hide it due to alcohol consumption. Said colleague spent Christmas alone.

• another year where a different colleague drunk herself to stupidity and made a fool of herself. The CEO was at the same party and colleague got a disciplinary.

• another year where one of the guys had passed out at another venue before the works party started. He was asleep and so missed the party. We didn't know where he was until the day after, so that was a bit of drama there trying to work out where he was and if he was ok etc.

That’s so odd because I absolutely took that it seems to be people’s own mothers causing the most drama! Some crazy stories!

Nothing so dramatic as some of the posts here, and it didn't happen to me but a friend who told me years later... She was expecting her first baby and she and her husband went to his parents for Christmas Day. The problem was, she went into labour and the MIL was most put out about that as it spoiled all the plans she'd made for a nice family Christmas

I’ve had a fair few shitty Christmas

1. Had a m/c then a burst appendix and was in hospital for 2 weeks as long as my then husband promised the consultant he would bring me back immediately if I was unwell and under strict instructions to take my temp and monitor me co Stanley (just out of icu) he picked me up on Christmas Day at 10 am moaning about the ten minute drive to get me. He and his shitty family then proceeded to get drunk as skunks. Meanwhile I’m feeling very very ill upstairs and ask him to take me to the hospital - he can’t as ‘had too much to drink’ and so have his brothers and parents - you’ll be ok he says. Eventually I’m feeling so ill I phone 999 and ask for ambulance - they are all passed out in the lounge drink - police break in and they find me upstairs and had 6 long weeks in intensive care and on a ward - how I didn’t die I don’t know
2. Parents saying they are coming and flying back on 21 at for hospital get food in spent a ducking fortune - they say they are coming on 23 rd - then a text saying they are held up and will pop down morning of 24 th -then in the morning they say they are actually on holiday until the 30 th in the Maldives but had ‘forgotten when their flight back was’ - the kids cried
3. Last Christmas moved in with them and relocated across the country. Xmas eve they tell us to ‘get out because of Covid’ lots of tears and them suggesting then we leave it and discuss it Boxing Day. No present for me Xmas day they told me they thought I was too old and to stop being upsetting as I was making everyone miserable

• they are ducking millionaires - a bottle of gin would have been nice

Bastard
Nc now

@myyellowcar

My mum and auntie cannot get on and ruin every Christmas arguing about absolutely nothing. Both manage to simultaneously be vile to each other and be the victim in the situation. They would literally bicker about fresh air. Exhausting and they can’t stop for one fucking day.

I’m the exact same. I have somehow become the person that does Christmas 🙄

As well as bickering they ‘help’ then argue about how to chop a carrot. One year one of them turned the oven off 🤷‍♀️

It’s exhausting. Prosecco,Gin,Wine gets me thorough. Was genuinely pleased last year that I could use Covid as an excuse. We had a lovely time on our own.

@HulaHoop2012 don’t have them round again!!! Honestly it’s not normal to have such horrible Christmas’s. Just say no.

Feel so sorry for everyone on this thread.

As a child my parents would meet at a social club wit my dad's (7) siblings and all my cousin's and a good time would be had by all.this is circa 1970 so luckily drink driving hadn't been invented and we all made it to Christmas Day 😁

@Bellafrenum

Some of these are really sad but some of them are hilarious.

Kind of want to chuck presents down the stairs and then lock myself in my car with a box of cigars and a bottle of whisky... AIBU?

No do it - I'm in!

[quote LaplandLucy]@HulaHoop2012 don’t have them round again!!! Honestly it’s not normal to have such horrible Christmas’s. Just say no.

Feel so sorry for everyone on this thread. [/quote]
I know I probably should. But both are on their own having lost their husbands.
It’s guilt.

Only good thing is my sister and I get on and would never subject our children to this.

We had suggested we take one each but my mum said it would be hard to pick between her children, my aunt took the “I can spend it alone” stance.
There’s a lot of issues between them.

My aunt slamming the door to my face in front of my husband and my child when we stopped by to say merry Christmas and drop off her present, because I only sent a card but didn't make a phone call to her on her birthday a couple of months earlier. I had a newborn at the time, wasn't in a particularly good mental space and found it hard to chat to anyone, especially someone as difficult as her. She's completely blanked me since and hadn't acknowledged any of mine or my childrens birthdays or Christmases.