What were the hard bits of Christmas growing up for you?

[sotiredofeverything]

I loved the family Christmases we had when I was a kid, but at some point as a teenager, between 13 and 15 my mum stopped coming on Christmas Day and came Boxing Day instead. I suspect because my stepfather preferred that or maybe my little sisters had a better Christmas at home so I get it. She had a new family. I lived with my grandparents from when I was a baby so I was at home with them.

I remember being puzzled and it sort of being a disappointment and wishing I could see my mum, but brushing it off as you do as a teen and not thinking about it. You just get on with it at that age don't you. For some reason, it's on my mind this year more than others and I'm an old gimmer now of 40!

For everybody who had less than perfect Christmases as a kid or teenager, is anyone else thinking about it this year?

My parents spending all their money on booze and having constant parties, while we got fuck all.

That's shit @tillytoodles1

The arguments and gaslighting from my stepmum after my mum died.

1 included being adamant we had always opened presents in the morning (because it suited her) when we had a rock solid tradition of after Christmas dinner. Rather then admitting the difference and asking for a change.

Another year my brother accidentally woke her going to bed at some ungodly hour so she woke him at 7am on Christmas morning to wash her car as punishment. He was in his 20s for goodness sake!

Watching my dad get more and more drunk throughout Christmas Day. After dinner we had to be quiet else dad would shout at us and he and mum would argue. The best part was when he fell asleep.

Walking into the house after school on the last day of term, the door slamming shit and it being locked.

It meant I was not going to see the outside world, much less set foot outside, until the first day back in January. Over two weeks locked inside with her and no witnesses.

Losing my Grandma to a house fire.

christmases after my dad died when I was in my mid teens were were just not the same after that.

Feeling utterly alone

My mother always detested Christmas, never hid it, and still does (at 92). It casts a shadow.

@sotiredofeverything

That sounds tough. I'm sorry - are things happier for you now?

@NeverDropYourMooncup
That is horrific. I got chills just reading your post ☹️☹️☹️

Waiting for my dad to ring .

which he didn’t because mum had changed our number and I didn’t find out about until I was 33 and social media came about and I had to find him like that.

I just hope that all those who are thinking of those Christmases are doing so from a place as far removed from that misery as possible. That your adult Christmases have been safe and peaceful and happy and you are collecting more good memories than bad.

I'm so sorry DragonMama3, that's so awful. How heartbreaking.

Being on tenterhooks as there was a lot of alcohol around and my mother would work her way through it relentlessly. She’d be argumentative and volatile then bleak and withdrawing in the New Year.

We still used to get excited about Christmas and we had gifts etc but my parents never had much money so everything you got was rammed down your throat about how much it cost.

There was always enough for whisky, lager and cigarettes though.

So sorry too Dancinfeet, a very sad loss at a vulnerable age.

Oh God, all of it. The crushing tension when everyone arrived, brittle smiles and dread and my mother practically handing out scripts. The horror of my sister handing back her Christmas presents because she didn't like them, and waiting for the screaming and crying to start. My stepfather drinking like a fish and everyone pretending not to notice. My mother's furious, puce-coloured face under a gaily coloured paper hat, spitting "shut your fucking mouth" at someone who dared to laugh at the dinner table.

The awful few years when we had to sit through her Christmas dinner, then be delivered straight to my dad's damp, freezing hoarder's hole of a house where he would have bought enough meat and cheese to feed an army and be hurt if we couldn't eat it all. Being driven home again by my stepfather, in tears because I was freezing and felt sick and wouldn't see dad again for months, because he headed back to Saudi for work after Christmas. Being jeered at all the way home by my stepdad for crying over "that bastard". Getting thumped for vomiting.

Then the forced games in the evening, which usually ended with my stepfather hitting one of us, my mother storming off to bed, screaming rows in the middle of the night with suitcases being emptied out of upstairs windows and people either flouncing or being thrown out.

I fucking hated Christmas as a child.

Late 70's kid here, the constant "behave or Santa won't come" threats for 6 weeks before really killed the Xmas spirit for me.

Having a much older sibling getting posh boxes of chocolates from grand parents and me getting a crappy selection box, hated that, I wanted posh chocolates!

Stressed parents having a meltdown at the slightest thing. Mother had to host anything up to 12 people in a 2 bedroom council house, sleeping on foldaway beds, all the cooking, cleaning etc. Dad's role was keeping the guests in drink and emptying ashtrays then sleeping after lunch while my Mum and Gran did all the dishes and tidying up(no one in our house smoked but all the guests did, house used to stink for weeks and it was like a fog hanging in the living room).

My mum died when I was ten, and my dad (actually my stepdad, but that's a story for another day) died when I was 12.

Literally just last week, I realised for the first time that I don't have a single memory of my last Christmas with my mum. We had moved house 10 months before she died and I find it really bizarre that I don't have any memory of that last Christmas with her, especially since it was our first in a new home, and me being at a new school.

I remember things from Christmas before and after her death, just nothing of that one.

I never knew whether my mother would get up out of bed or not. She used to threaten it every year and actually did it a couple of them. One year, she came down for lunch and went back to bed again.

She hates Christmas and describes it as a lot of faff and although she mellowed, I still remember some of the things she did. Examples include, hitting me so hard over and over until my dad came home and stopped her - I was excited to go and buy the tree. Tying a tie round the bannister and my door handle of my room to lock me in - not sure what I'd done. Being moody, horrible and obnoxious on boxing day when we went to se paternal grandparents. She often caused an argument and some years refused to go after my dad had willingly hosted all her family.

The only saving grace was that it was my Grandma's birthday on Christmas day. She took over with the lunch and often tried to protect me. I suppose that this annoyed my mother more. I was devastated when she died and we didn't have that lovely party tea for her.

Luckily, I have my own dc now. I love Christmas. We do the songs, the santas grotto, believing in Father Christmas, lights, tinsel and happiness.

I'm sorry to read what awful christmases some of you had. I hope things are better for you all now.

I had a very normal childhood. My parents drank very little (their parents were alcoholic). We used to have the fun of our cousins joining us because sadly my Aunt died but of course my Uncle remarried. Nothing awful happened although I noticed towards the end (I mean before Mum died), she got a bit tetchy about the cooking, but even when my brother took over the cooking, she still got involved and got wound up by my other Aunt (not a great cook) interfering, Nothing major though. When she wasn't cooking she enjoyed it!

It was great! Us kids had cherryade to drink, one of those Swedish table decorations (I bought one for me, my two brothers and a cousin a few years back) the carousel thing with angels and trumpets. Eating too much chocolate and waking up at 5am and whispering loudly to my brother "Santa's been", not knowing that mum heard and was giggling in the other room. Her getting up early to start cooking the turkey.

When my Nanna was widowed we would have her round, but she drank and would get paranoid that someone had slighted her so our Christmas photos included her "face".

I particularly loved it when we played games too.

Sadly with the passing of Mum, Dad and my Aunt I don't get invited anywhere for Christmas.. My brothers have their own families now, so I usually work.

My mum was always in a bad mood so it was a pretty joyless affair. My dad only ever drank on Christmas Day, and would end up sloppy drunk. Seeing a parent drunk, even if it’s one day a year, is awful.

Once I was an older teen and started seeing how boyfriends’ families did Christmas was an eye opener. I have made sure that my own family Christmasses have been full of happiness and fun.

Posted twice

DM was an aggressive alcoholic. My much older DBs and DS would be around at Christmas and the mood improved for DF and I. Then they'd go and DF would go back to work and I'd dread that from Boxing Day onwards, being stuck with her. I longed for school to start again.

Nothing as awful as many of the posters on this thread. Big hugs to you all.

We were loved and well cared for in most ways, but it was definitely an emotionally abusive household (parents to each other and mum to us kids). Both parents were highly critical of their own and each other’s families, and mum was always so stressed about everything being respectable and perfect. My dad was highly appreciative of everything being so lovely, which probably didn’t help in hindsight. It would have been better if he’d been more relaxed and happy to go with the flow, as it would have taken some pressure off mum.

My main memories of Christmas (and childhood in general really) are of tension and my mum’s tears and bad moods over seemingly silly little things. In hindsight, those little things were probably the straw that broke the camel’s back though. I just remember desperately trying to make them both happy so they didn’t start arguing. They’re not much better now - it’s always very tense and they bicker every time I see them. Mum also moans to me about dad and I just try to move the conversation on.

As an adult I now constantly battle against aiming for perfection, and sadly the less time I spend around my mum, the better I get each year. At the end of the day I think we’re all shaped by our childhoods, am I’m shaped by mine just as much as she was shaped by her own. I don’t blame her as such, I just feel sad about it all.