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.

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!

Practice your sleight of hand or declare ‘look! A squirrel’ and replace that perfume with your favourite

@SoniaFouler I know you meant for this to be more light hearted, but this thread has obviously been very cathartic for a lot of people.
Well done for fulfilling an obvious need 💐
I hope some posters realise that they have the power to change things by refusing to engage , to others, I am so sorry this happened to you ❤️

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius

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

Pigs in blankets for you, @Arethechildreninbedyet.

Squeeeee!

They are adorable!

@SoniaFouler - or you could try reverse psychology and pretend it’s really your favourite, but your DH keeps buying that bloody awful “X” and you have to keep wearing it even though you loathe it.
*Insert name of favourite fragrance. Preferably more expensive.

[quote NoraEphronsNeck]**@ThumbWitchesAbroad

No he treats my DC absolutely as if they were his own - better than their own father - and all DC are equal in our house.

She is the only fly in the ointment but as I don't see her from one year to the next it's not an issue.[/quote]
Ah that's great to hear - glad he's a good'un!

Christmas 2004 I invited a woman I met in hospital and struck up a friendship with to my home for a few days over the Christmas period during Christmas Day evening things became heated and she became quite hostile and antisocial and she retired to her guest room and stayed there,till she left on Boxing Day before she left she threw things around in the home and as I was back at work Boxing Day my partner was left to put up with her before she left.
Not a great Christmas Day but one I learnt from, bizarrely I found one of her shoes behind a piece of furniture after she left that she threw and left,the things we leave behind eh

SiL, for all her other faults, was victim to some v bad behavior last year. She had split with her awful ex mid Dec last year and moved home. Went with FiL to get her last boxes and do the end of tenancy check out on new years. Ex turned up to do the same with his mum. Demanded SiL bring their 2mo Dd. Ex and his mum literally fall upon baby, cover her in kisses, eat her hands etc. Later, everyone at FiLs house starts feeling iffy inc the baby, the ex sheepishly admits his whole family had all had covid tests just before he saw SiL. His sister had been partying, found out she had been exposed, and came for family Xmas anyway. They felt poorly but decided not to tell SiL and rearrange with the poor EA just doing her job because they didn't want to miss out on seeing the baby.

Luckiky everyone recovered and DP had already come back home so missed it but my youngest BiL still can't taste or smell properly.

Otherwise SiL can be quite tricky herself. DP and I decided last Christmas that we'd have this one just us since we'd missed each other. FiL actually told DP a few months ago - before he knew we'd planned it anyway- to stay away since he had somewhere else nice to be. We think he's anticipating a year of tension with SiL (and jealousy from SiL that we got engaged last month and unknowingly stole her huge, subsequently hinted at xmas-ring-announcement thunder) to blow up and is keeping us out of it. We're having a quiet day, phones off!

These threads are brilliant, someone should put them into a book. I could sit and read these for hours as some are hilarious and others gob smacking. Happy Christmas everyone

@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)

Omfg. This is insane. So pleased you're nc now. Wow. Sending hugs lol.

@Quickchangeartiste

These stories really put my own crappy Christmas tales into perspective. Seriously hope you all have a lovely Christmas this year. You really deserve them .

I was thinking the same. I thought my own fussy judgey mother was bad enough, but seems like a dream compared to some. I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas if possible!!

@SoniaFouler
So she thought you should sit at home feeling miserable that you weren't invited, instead of going out enjoying yourselves?

We had a particularly Gothic Christmas one year when I was about 11. My grandmother died suddenly, thousands of miles away. For some reason my mother felt obliged to still host Christmas Day. My Great Aunt and her usually lovely friend came: they spent the entire time criticising everything. My Aunt essentially told my sister and me that we were extremely unattractive. It was a horrible atmosphere. Finally, right in the middle of the meal itself, Great Aunt turned to my mother, cocked her head to one side and said: "You don't seem terribly upset that your mother died yesterday."

My mum ran off and hid in a cupboard crying for an hour.

My father proceeded to have a bipolar episode and tried to gas us all to death that night. Fortunately my mother woke up, because obviously she wasn't sleeping too well: he was then committed for several months.

Christmas has never really been the same since. (Obviously the only really bad behaviour was that of my aunt.)

Bloody hell @MrsGhastlyCrumb! Thst could be an entire horror film tbh.

People can be so
Mean

I'm so sorry for those who've had such awful times, I came on thinking it would be amusing stories and then have read some truly shocking accounts. Sending everyone here very best wishes for a happy holiday this year, and even better times ahead..

Adding my own, definitely lighthearted, bit: one Christmas at my DSis with DNiece and her six week old firstborn, her DP and his family and their dog Racer, a retired ex-racing greyhound. The glasses are on the coffee table, the champagne is poured and everyone is just about to take their glass when along comes Racer. He's very happy and wants to join in the fun so rushes up all waggy and smiley - and with one neat swipe of his tail, knocks every single glass off the table!

We eventually had our toast, but in prosecco.

The Christmas day when my mom asked my dad what present he had got his girlfriend.

Ouch.

Ex husband vomiting on my hair on Christmas day as he was drunk in the middle on the night and we were at his mom to top it all

😖

My parents were always awful at Xmas- falling over drunk and endless arguments. The usual that goes with all that- injuries, vomit etc. I have allergies ( proper ones!) and during my last Christmas at home my mum forgot to get me anything alternative. She put flour with the roast potatoes and in the gravy so I couldn’t have any. She doesn’t do many veg so I ended up with literally a saucer of limp veg for my Xmas dinner at 16. I decided no more and that was the very last Xmas I spent with them. Luckily I got a job in a hotel and had amazing Christmasses until I had my own children😆.

The one where my father decided to move back into the family home AFTER an awful split from mum because he was still on the tenancy and he was entitled to..... (no doubt egged on by grandfather)
It was horrible. He bought presents for two of us kids but not the eldest. Middle child launched theirs back at him and we spent a miserable Xmas hiding upstairs from him.
The worst thing is he had already moved on, in fact he had been seen with the OW well before the split (although mum was never told) , he just wanted to be a spiteful git.

My DF is quite a disturbed person with anger and drink issues. He very often created a tense, walking on eggshells atmosphere and xmas was particularly bad for it. We would often hide from him or face the wall if he walked by.

Every year at Christmas he would tell my DM that he didn't want the expense and fuss of xmas, that it was all bullshit and he would have beans on toast.

When xmas eve rolled around he would come in from the pub, sit at the table and demand "his Christmas party like all of his friends were having". My DM would be there wringing her hands trying to explain that he insisted he didn't want to celebrate it and she hadn't got anything in. Cue getting very drunk and ranting like a little child about how unfair it was and how he wasn't getting a Christmas like everyone else he knew was. He'd be really horrible to her.

After a few rounds of this my DM would sneak around buying things in secret and hiding them (meaning her shopping budget was always really tight as the SAHP). Then when my DF went out to the pub on xmas eve she would jump up and run into the kitchen to make it all the way he wanted it.

Even from a young age I thought this was ridiculous and very tiresome.

One year my DM was bedridden (or avoiding him not sure which) and so I was subjected to the xmas is BS and I want beans on toast performance. I was 17 and well over it so I said fine. He spent the next few days repeatedly trying to get me to check if we had beans, which I refused to do and said he could look himself. He didn't like this nonchalant approach because the whole point is to get everyone racing around checking what he wants now.

Anyway a couple of days before xmas he had a massive go at me for literally no reason so I threw my plate of dinner at him (to the side) and went to bed leaving it all smashed on the floor.

The next day he'd cleaned it up and been to the shop and bought everything for xmas, he even got me a present shocker. He continued to be an arsehole for years to come but that Christmas was actually nice in a bittersweet way because I think he realised I could be way more of a dick head than him and if he said he wanted beans on toast then that's what he could have.

Still get very tense around Christmas time.

Just found this elsewhere - might be useful for people to watch if they want to take a step back at Christmas!
Marian Keyes on how shite Christmas can be for people.

Oh! Should have previewed that - it's now telling me it's unavailable video, even though I'm literally still watching it myself!

Trying again...