Your most unusual Christmas

[GiraffesAtThePark]

Most of my Christmases have been very typical with family and turkey at one of our houses but one year in my twenties I was working in Japan and had a friend visit for Christmas. We spent Christmas Day in Disneyland Tokyo. It was so much fun going on rides and watching a Japanese Santa shouting ‘happy holidays’ in a Christmas parade with dancing snowmen. I had lunch in a little mermaid restaurant and dinner in the restaurant in the pirates of the Caribbean ride.

What unusual Christmases have you had?

We went Cuba for Xmas and NY one year. It didn't feel like Xmas at all. I remember drinking one too many rum squishies by the pool in the morning, then it rained i think and we spent the afternoon in our room watching Cider House Rules. I think there was a gala dinner in the evening but due to the copious amounts of rum consumed before hand, I have no memory of it. Lots of Feliz Navidad.

Head in a bag though! 😱

Well since others are telling ghoulish stories I shall tell 2 of mine.

TW as they all involve death....

1. My sister accidentally killed grandma. Not quite but maybe. My very old great-grandmother, well into her late 90s and very frail, all her faculties about her but could be blown away by the smallest gust of wind etc. Anyway she came over for X-Mas day. We were told not to excite her or jump around on her or do anything that might cause her to actually have to get up etc. Yeah my youngest sister didn't listen. She was all over grandma and jumping into her lap and trying to get her to play etc. Long story short gran had a heart attach and died while my 3 yeah old sister was trying to get her to play 'horsey'. Needless to say Christmas was cancelled immediately.

2. Driving home from Bristol to Kent while a student with a group of mates. Very busy traffic, horrible conditions and snow etc and just awful cold car. Anyway we're driving along and this stupid motorbike rider wizzes passed, skids on some ice and goes into the back of a lorry. Instant decapitation. His head ended up bouncing on the bonnet of the car next to us. None of us felt like Christmas that year.

Jfc, at this rate I'm not in the mood for Christmas this year

My first thought was theatre as in where musical performances happen!

This is my kind of thread about Xmas!! 🎅

@StrawberryWater granny died happy in the middle of the family mid horsey games 😄. Good way to go really.

Not that unusual, but spent Xmas Day on a plane on the way to a holiday in West Africa. Significantly better day than the traditional "stuck at home with the relatives eating horrible turkey" type of Christmas, I have to say.

Yes, I wasn’t expecting some of the anecdotes to be quite so….disturbing!

Ok I'm out.

You win

I’ve got a slightly unusual New Year one. On the NYE/NYD flight back to the UK from the same Christmas holiday in Florida I mentioned upthread, at the behest of the captain, at midnight (not sure which time zone he was using!) we all had to stand up mid-flight and sing Auld Lang Syne, followed by a drink of complimentary champagne!

I also read it like that and I spent some confused moments trying to figure out why the severed penis man was brought to the theatre

Had to re-read this when I realised at the end that you meant a theatre in a hospital and not a thespian theatre. 🎭

@ImWearingPantaloons I think we've probably both seen more than our share but I'm afraid @StrawberryWater wins in the awful stakes for me today

I always think at least I'm trained , expecting to see the grotesque and paid for it too .. minding my own business .. must be awful

I had a nanny job with a family from overseas who never celebrated Christmas. They wanted me to work over Christmas.
I said I would only work over Christmas if we could celebrate Christmas. Well they went all out with the biggest tree and decorations and lobster and champagne 😜 it was great.

I embraced their cultures and they embraced mine. I ended up staying with them for years and having many Christmases together :)

I spent one wandering the regents canal searching for a resident of the care unit I was managing. She had Huntingdon disease and I was so worried about her. Found her in the end-after 5 very chilly hours.

Bottom of the Rift Valley, 1990.
I was one of a bunch of post-uni volunteers who were invited to stay at the house of some missionaries.
We were in a little separate building all in sleeping bags on mats.
The main house had solar batteries and they played a tape of Young Messiah.
Christmas morning service was in a language I knew not a word of in a baking hot tin roofed church.
My friend was working nearby but at the top of the valley and we were glad to get back up to the cool (she was in the area all the marathon runners come from).

😨Bloody hell! That made me draw breath! You must have been terrified too!

I had Christmas Evein hospital after a miscarriage at 16 weeks, was shite. However, Dc born the following November so very happy the next Christmas.
Also had a Caribbean Christmas, beach, dancing and Johnny cakes.

working in A&E Christmas Day we had 2 patients, who didn’t know each other, both came in within 10 minutes of each other with a severed finger from carving the turkey.

The randomist thing though was that they were both wearing the same Christmas jumper!!

‘Christmas’ in Egypt decades ago.It was surprisingly cheap, because no one there took any notice of Christmas and at that stage they didn’t bother to attract or cater for western tourists by pretending.

Sitting in the Ramses Hilton, we heard a lot of chanting, bagpipes( sort of) and drumming as a large party of people made their way into Reception and then into the enormous restaurant. DM who had been fretting a bit about the lack of festive cheer, brightened up at this saying ‘ ooo ! a Nativity Play ! She had been an teacher at Infant school ( as it was then called) for many years.

It was a wedding, complete with very young bride.

Oh my good god!! how on earth did that happen??!

Thailand, Phuket. On a beach, 31°drinking cocktails all day and then went to the 3Monkeys amazing treehouse restaurant.

A year later, San Francisco walking around the pier and a lovely dinner. Felt unusual as we didn't have the usual typical Xmas dinner. .

New York felt unusual as we had dinner at tavern on the green in central park and people were just going about their normal day. Shops were all open etc.

Sorry just re read and it seems the penis chopping was intentional. I thought for a minute it was an accident.

Head in a bag!! Crikey

I’ve had quite a few interesting ones working in mental health but they are not for me to share.

As a child I spent a Christmas Day in a car park with my (alcoholic) dad. He had taken me to buy me a Christmas present but not listened when I said that the shops would be closed. He had already been drinking so just continued and then passed out. I sat playing eye spy by myself. I think that I was around 9? I was embarrassed more than anything.

Let me guess, the fingers and penis chopping were electric knives?

On a beach of black sand in the sunshine in New Zealand