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.

Mine are nowhere near as bad as most on this thread - so very sad for so many of you and the awful people and situations you've had to deal with.

DH who is autistic has had two or three strops on Christmas Day, usually at his DPs' house, brought on by being tired, sensory overload, too many relatives crammed in a not very spacious too warm house, my FIL being controlling over the order of the day, no respite from any of it. FIL then gets a face on and skulks off to the bedroom and shuts the door. Three years ago we decided enough was enough and that we will do Christmas on our terms from now on. DC1 is also likely on the spectrum and it's best for everyone if we are firm about what we will and won't do.

The best (worst) one though was the Christmas where DH's nan, arriving for Boxing Day lunch, pulled onto the driveway and drove into the back of our car, then promptly reversed out and drove off home, refused to speak about it to anyone and has never apologised to this day let alone offered to pay for repairs etc.

I have nothing to add as my examples pale into insignificance compared to most of the posts here. I just wanted to say, to all of the posters that have had awful, abusive and violent Christmas experiences, I hope you all now have nothing but love, peace and joy and happy Christmas experiences in the future

Not sure if this belongs on this thread but here goes;

We were staying at DH's parents house for Christmas in another (large) town.
On the evening of Christmas Day at 9.00.pm my DH (now ex) announced that he was going to queue outside a well-known furniture store because they had a 3 piece suite advertised at £5 for the first customer. (The store opened at 9.00.am Boxing Day)
We all said he was crazy and I refused to give him the car keys. In the end he got so unpleasant that my BIL took him down there and left him on his own outside the store.

He came back at 2.00.am, when we were all in bed, stinking of booze. When I asked him where he'd been he said that he got cold in the queue and another customer gave him a drink of whisky from a hip flask.

I thought he'd managed to get into some club somewhere but I was surprised that any where open on Christmas Day. We went home on Boxing Day and I gave him hell all the way home, while he just sulked.
I told him it was the last time I visited his parents, because if he was going to act like a spoilt brat and then clear off ,then I might as well stay home.

My words actually came true as I found out about OW and divorced him the next year.

Months later I found out that his OW (that I didn't know about) was staying with relatives in the same town and he'd made arrangements to see her. [shocked]

My parents are like spoilt kids in adults bodies. Have no social graces or self-awarness. They arrived to spend Christmas with me, DH and DS. Brought absolutely nothing with them, not even a cheap bottle of wine, which would have at least been something.

If we don't do anything with them, they just sit on the sofa like sloths.
So we took them for a lovely walk (less than 3 miles) on Christmas eve, my mum complained the whole way asking how much further and saying her blood sugar was low and she needed a "sweetie". Stopped at a pub so she could re-fuel under some heaters with lovely twinkling lights. DH commented how nice it was - she just snorted and rolled her eyes.

Christmas day they proceeded to drink us dry. My dad had beer, champagne, red and white wine and then started going through our drinks cabinet. He picked out a half bottle of special whisky I had bought for my DH's birthday, brought it back to the table and broke the seal, sniffed it and then drank some straight of the bottle. I was bloody fuming. They then both fell asleep on the sofa whilst me and DH cleaned up the kitchen.

I am sure he had a stonking hangover the next day (but he pretended he was fine)....and they wonder why we make excuses not to spend Christmas with them....

40 years old

And nothing
No work colleague
No friend
No family member

Ever behaving really badly at Christmas

My mother throwing her shoes at my 13 year old sister's head because my sister is vegetarian and said No Thank You to a sausage.
My mother setting fire to the crackers because my then 10 year old brother wanted to pull his with our father instead of her.
My mother running out of the house crying that I'd ruined her Christmas because she found out I was on antidepressants. (I was 35 at the time!)
My mother should have been reported when we were children but she's a teacher and anything we tried to tell anyone was ignored because "Your mother is a lovely woman, don't be so horrible."
Likewise my alcoholic father who was a university lecturer and Such A Lovely Man.

@vampirethriller

My mother throwing her shoes at my 13 year old sister's head because my sister is vegetarian and said No Thank You to a sausage. My mother setting fire to the crackers because my then 10 year old brother wanted to pull his with our father instead of her. My mother running out of the house crying that I'd ruined her Christmas because she found out I was on antidepressants. (I was 35 at the time!) My mother should have been reported when we were children but she's a teacher and anything we tried to tell anyone was ignored because "Your mother is a lovely woman, don't be so horrible." Likewise my alcoholic father who was a university lecturer and Such A Lovely Man.

At 35, you should have said no chance to spending Christmas with her

@TheLightSideOfTheMoon

MiL once got stoned shortly before Christmas dinner and went to bed, called down halfway through dinner for someone to bring her a ham sandwich.

Shortly after MiL’s sister split some gravy (no big deal in my opinion) but then spent the rest of the dinner in an obvious sulk.

After reading this exhausting and emotional thread, I think the stoned MIL has the right idea.

@Happy1982ish that was my last one!

@RaPumPumPumPum

Are you joking? Have you been under a rock? That's EXACTLY how domestic violence works - especially with the heightened everything that is around Christmas, and of course, alcohol.

I have gone to bed on Christmas Eve - all perfectly fine - and then been woken up by having water thrown in my face and then spat at and told I am a lazy cunt. There was NO REASON. I was asleep. The reason it happened was because the man I was with was an abusive, violent pig who was drunk and thought that I should have still be up with him after he had fallen into a drunken stupor at 1am and woken at 4am alone and cold on the sofa. The fact that I went to bed at 1am made me lazy. He then rampaged through the house smashing presents that were under the tree before falling asleep again.

This was indicative of the several months we were together and I can categorically say that on the occasion when I was attacked, it was NOT MY FAULT. So please fuck off with your raised eyebrow question mark victim blaming bullshit.

[quote Nishkin]@Marylou62 I absolutely love your Dad. What a giant of a man. He probably hated your distress but bore it. Something in my eye![/quote]
Thank you Nishkin... He Knew exactly what his mother was like... Another time we parked at her flats.. He always went to check she was in.. (as we got older we realised he actually went to check how drunk she was) anyway he came back and said she's not in.. Trouble was us 5 siblings could see her waving from her window... Still remember tears and shouts of Daaad... She's at the window!.. Could write a book about her and the things she did to our family... Taking my brother and I to Brighton ages 6 mths and 18 months... (my mum was sort of made to let us go). We got very cold and wet but she left us in the pram outside the pub.. We were found by a policeman who took us to the station.. My Mum was frantic and we weren't returned till the next day...last time she was ever left on her own with us.. Probably why she refused to acknowledge my 3 younger brothers...

Can I ask, what does ‘stoned’ mean?
In Australia, it’s someone off their head on drugs. Not alcohol.

[quote LaplandLucy]@Bogeyes child abuse, violence and rampant alcoholism are not real life. Nearly all the parents n this thread should’ve been reported to social services[/quote]
It was real life to me. I had a violent bullying father

I suppose I don’t mean real life. I mean it’s not a normal life to be experiencing all this. I’m sorry you had to put up with such a horrible father.

I haven't really got any, just Pinteresque Christmases at my parents' before they finally saw sense and divorced. It was simmering tension and the occasional blow-up. I hated it. I still loathe Christmas now.
But I'm marking my place and enjoying these. Some are

Laila747
Just tried to read this to my DH and couldn’t as could feel myself getting upset. Shame on them all, hope they’re on mumsnet and recognise themselves and feel thoroughly ashamed!!

When I was 7 DM getting wasted Xmas morning then falling asleep by 11. DF cooking all the xmas lunch for us and both sets of grandparents. Nobody could wake her up despite much effort so we sit down to eat around 3. At 5ish she comes staggering downstairs fuming we have eaten without her, promptly screams at us that we've all ruined christmas and proceeds to take her plate of food we saved and frisbee it out the back door, shattering on the neighbours driveway.

Oh just thought of another one. So we all used to go to my grandad's at Christmas as well as him come to our house, lots of food and we sat around a big dining table eating and drinking.

My auntie (DM's younger half sister) was married to a man (my uncle) no one liked but we were all nice to each others faces for politeness sake and kids sake. His dog was at the table, a gorgeous soppy Dobermann and suddenly, god knows what possessed him, he'd had a bit to drink, he got a corkscrew and screwed it into dog's ear on the table to make it yelp and cower, I think he thought in some sick twisted way it was funny. Everyone there (all animal lovers, all owned dogs) was appalled as no one else would ever behaviour that way towards an animal and words were said to him and he was admonished at the table but I recall seeing the fairy lights twinkling on the nearby Christmas tree (on another table in the same room) and thinking poor dog, at Christmas. He supposedly loved the dog. My auntie was really upset as the dog was her best friend and companion when uncle was away. Luckily they're divorced now, nasty piece of work the uncle was.

@OssieShowman

Can I ask, what does ‘stoned’ mean? In Australia, it’s someone off their head on drugs. Not alcohol.

Same here ..stoned drugs.

@IntermittentParps

I haven't really got any, just Pinteresque Christmases at my parents' before they finally saw sense and divorced. It was simmering tension and the occasional blow-up. I hated it. I still loathe Christmas now. But I'm marking my place and enjoying these. Some are

@IntermittentParps - I think a lot of Christmas blow-ups are the consequence of everything coming to a boil (pressure cooker environment) with everyone trapped together, too much alcohol and so on and then arguments ensue.

I always recall working at a law firm as a new employee (new to legal world) and my then boss who worked in matrimonial/divorce law rubbing his hands with glee (repressed single gay man so didn't like others to be happily attached!) - telling me that in the new year he'd get lots of new divorce clients as at Christmas everyone fell out and then made a decision in the New Year to separate/divorce. Only that year there was a huge recession and everyone was poor so there were hardly any new clients. He was like Scrooge though, rubbing his hands with glee at others' potential misfortune and suffering and thinking of the money he would make off them!

@Iputthetrampintrampoline - to me 'stoned' has always meant re drugs - hash/weed off their head on drugs in UK and most other countries. Not any other drugs like Ecstasy, LSD etc.

@DimplesToadfoot

I was a single parent, on my knees financially, with no family of my own I had no help from anyone, the only presents my DS 9yo got were what I bought and it was never much. I scrimped and scraped to buy a remote control car, DS was playing with it on the driveway, the car was on the cusp of the driveway and pavement and had stopped moving, before either I or my son could get to it a man crossed the road and stomped on it, obviously shattering it into pieces. I shouted after the man but I'm disabled I couldn't give chase :-( my son was heartbroken and there was absolutely nothing I could do :-( eventually months later I had the money for another car, he didnt want one :-( Christmas never was the same for my DS after

What a complete and utter bastard he was!

Your poor little lad.

I'd like to think that karma got the nasty bugger, but is so rarely works out that way.

Gonnagetgoing, unfortunately Christmas was just a microcosm of my parents' marriage. They were unhappy all the time. Once I left home for uni I went back as little as possible and tried my best to avoid Christmas with them.

When I was 17 I spent Christmas at my then boyfriends parents house. We'd been together two years and oh my fucking god, his mum was so so so spiteful. She loaded up a stocking for BF and stuck a sticky label on a pair of Poundland gloves for me and left them on the floor. She had been given all my presents by my mum, including my stocking. There was a huge pile of gifts under their tree, none of them for me, which was a bit heartbreaking, and she prepared all their Christmas dinner with something I'm allergic to so I couldn't eat it. Then exploded with rage at how much of "an ungrateful, council estate raised tramp" I was when I discretely excused myself so I could cry in their toilet without drawing attention to myself. I could hear her ranting her head off and telling my boyfriend he could do better, why couldn't he go out with her friend Carol's daughter, they own their own house etc. When I went back in, all she did was glare at me along with her mother and father. She didn't give me a turn at charades, told me
I looked like a stripper in my red dress and told
me I couldn't have a glass of Buck's Fizz because I wasn't 18, while her 15 year old daughter had her glass topped off. When I went home the next day, she handed me two carrier bags full of my presents and my stocking and said "oh, I forgot about these."

She threatened to write him out of her will when he proposed to me. Apparently she was going to throw a party when we broke up three years later. I saw her in a supermarket when I was 35. She was having a fucking meltdown over there being no fresh chicken stock and I couldn't help but laugh while looking straight at her. Her name was Karen. If you're reading this, Karen F, fuck you!

Gonna
"I think a lot of Christmas blow-ups are the consequence of everything coming to a boil (pressure cooker environment) with everyone trapped together, too much alcohol and so on and then arguments ensue."

I agree,
It's the same with weddings and funerals.
If you take a group of people, some related to each other, some not, some who don't like each other anyway, some who don't want to be there but come out of duty or to "freeload", corral them together and then throw in alcohol, it's a recipe for disaster.