What was your worst Xmas ever? (Lighthearted)

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Not a Phoebe Cates bad Christmas but daft bad Christmas's you can look back on & laugh.

My Mum invited me round but when I opened my gift from her it was a cookbook with an inscription saying go to page 125 (?). There was the recipe for roast goose (which I dont even like). She then sat back & expected me to cook the meal!

The time when everyone was ill so most stayed in bed and the food just got gradually eaten over the next week.

I was a big TT fan so I got a E17 CD as a present!

A CD when I didn't have a CD player.

An Amazon voucher when I had no home internet/PC/ pre smartphone days.

Chestnuts no one knew how to cook so they were just these hard rocks on a plate.

Teens refusing to dress properly so wearing shorts under the table.

The cat getting at the turkey carcass before the dregs get put in curry. The curry being made regardless.

Getting the car put in the pound on Christmas week because of an unknown rule.

Some point in my 20s on Boxing Day with my parents, the three of us were sitting in the kitchen having a drink, the family Boxing Day meal was always turkey, mash and pickles 🤢, I was in charge of boiling the potatoes, I left them on a very low simmer as I was enjoying myself.

So it comes to draining and mashing the potatoes, I push down with the masher and oh shit, resistance, i had left them on such a gentle simmer they had barely cooked! My mum asked if everything was alright, I had a decision to make, I chose the wrong one. I styled it out and kept on mashing away, hands and wrists shaking and straining with every plunge of the masher, electric cooker top vibrating and pan sort of spinning around with the force of my downward compressions. Served the potatoes and for some reason we all styled it out and sat there crunching away at the smooshed up potato which was partly cooked with solid lumps in between the semi cooked mush. We never spoke of it again!

Mums gone now, just me my dad to have our turns taking that abomination to the grave with us!

Two years ago DD and DSIL got covid so had DGD, then sister broke leg and came home to my house on Xmas eve Had to also have 90 year old DM and get shopping for all as no delivery spots. ARGOS delivered a bed as DS could not do stairs. I also have major spinal problems and a lot of pain. Half of group missed Xmas day meal out, toddler played up and food was crap.
Has now become a family legend

I was 35 weeks pregnant and not at all well - ICP and the tablets were making me sick, and I couldn't sleep for itching. We stayed with my inlaws and I was just limp, and terribly anxious we'd loose the baby.

MIL (who is lovely) kept trying to get me to eat more and give me nice things. I remember vomiting Christmas pudding all over the bathroom and then sheepishly cleaning it up because I was so embarrassed.

Baby turned up 2 weeks later and I was ever so relieved!

Woke with a sickness bug Christmas morning, felt so ill, got up for kids to open their gifts, went back to bed. My late MIL was staying with us for Christmas, she had the same bug, and also stayed in bed. DH cooked dinner and ate it with the boys, kept them entertained all day. I got up about 8pm, didn’t see MIL until the next day.

One Chrismas my mum got bitten by my hamster (my Christmas present) and had to go to A and E, we weren't laughing at the time but looking back it was funny!

The first Xmas after my Dad died was always going to be a bad one. I was 27, single, and the week before had got very drunk in a bar and fell off my high heels and so Xmas was spent on crutches. It was just Mum and I and we’d been invited to my aunt and uncle’s house for Christmas Day. As we walked in, they had a framed copy of the Order of Service from Dad’s funeral on top of the TV, the heating on full blast and Judy Garland’s Christmas Classics on the stereo. It was a long day, what with the crutches, the painkillers, Dad looming over us and Judy mournfully crooning. I like to think he was up there sniggering.

I got a flower fairy house too, was it a circular shape and had lots of net curtains? Quite hard to put together, don't think I played with it much, you could have had mine.

First time DH or fiancé then came for Christmas lunch.
Dad got drunk and decided to start a fight with everyone.
Next door neighbour put his music on a bit louder than dad liked.
So dad went round and started to try and hit him.

After that mum divorced him.

Many years ago, I worked the night shift into Christmas Day then hosted Christmas for DH’s family! Heaven only knows what I was thinking!

Anyway, I came down with a temperature during my shift, feeling awful by the time I got home. Cooked Christmas dinner, all okay….ds1 who was probably only 6 or 7 threw up in his Christmas dinner, we both ended up in bed really ill, ds2 followed a short while later also ill. DH got really drunk downstairs hosting his family which was really out of character for him so I have mostly forgiven him now😜….worst Christmas ever.

Turned out I had flu and was off work for several weeks! Haven’t hosted since!

As a teenager having huge extended family staying and I was relegated from my bedroom to the sofa.

I had to be the last to bed at around 1am for obvious reasons and then I was the first up when my grandmother surfaced at 6am because she’d gone to bed at 10 the night before and wanted a cup of tea. After the third night I was starting to get desperate and then came down with horrible flu.

Lighthearted one here! Me and my brother were about 4 and 6 at the time.
Presents were always in the living room on Xmas morning and we were desperately trying to subtlety wake up our parents (despite being under strict instructions to stay in our own rooms till 7am).
We snuck downstairs about 4am and my brother dared me to punch him in the face; I duly obliged; he had a massive nosebleed every where.
Queue some very angry parents and we weren't allowed to get up until 8am and could hear the whole street having fun without us!

Lighthearted worse Xmas...not really for me or DB (but likely for my parents)...when we were very little, my DB and I sneaked downstairs overnight, and pulled all the labels of the presents under the Christmas tree...

My actual worst Christmas was 2009. Ex DP and father of my then 5 and 3 year old had ended things (by text) in November. We found out just after that that my lovely Grandma's cancer had come back and was terminal. My mum went to spent time with her but was due back Christmas eve. But then decided thethree "end" was so close that she'd stay with her dad. Absolutely the right thing to do. I was meant to be spending Christmas Day with my mum so had no Christmas food in. My step-dad came and picked us up and we spent the day with him and his family.
Then to make matters worse my ex thought he should tell me ON CHRISTMAS DAY that he was seeing someone new. Cunt.

My lighthearted worst was the year my brothers got really cool tin-can alley toys. I got socks. I was so upset and had to pretend I loved them!

@Megapint has reminded me of the one where I was about 6 and my sister 4. She got a Sindy camping set and there was a tent which my parents had put together the night before so she would see it when she got up. I came in, tripped over my own feet and fell on top of it, smashing the frame into about 80 pieces. My sister heard the crash, ran in and immediately started crying her eyes out.. Fortunately my grandad was a total woodwork legend and not v sociable so was happy to spend Christmas morning in the garage making a replacement wooden frame for it- thanks grandad. He also made made me an amazing Sindy house one year ❤️❤️.

Also the one where I went for a “just us” Christmas with my now ex. We went for a romantic walk in the hills but got lost and wandered around in the rain and fog for about 5 hours thinking we were probably going to die up there.

DH's family came to stay for 3 days as we had just moved into a house big enough for us to host. I spent ages in the run up getting everything prepped for Christmas whilst working and looking after a 1 year old.

DH had been out for several big nights out in the last week of work and had (we thought) pulled a muscle in his neck while pissed and was completely out of action and unable to help.

I was not happy as having to juggle everything (and inlaws are the type to want to be waited on in the style of Julia's from Motherland). Cue a few hissed arguments about how he'd left me to manage alone. Boxing day morning DH wakes up with a rash all over one side of his head. Take him to out of hours. It's shingles.

Turns out he also managed to give DS and DNephew chicken pox. January was an utter write off on all fronts. In laws have never come for Christmas again.

Christmas with my (now ex) in-laws. His mum got so drunk at the local pub in the morning we only ate “lunch” at 8pm by which time my SIL was in tears with hunger. I was the only one who brought alcohol and everyone else drank it so by 8pm I’d spent most of Christmas day hungry and sober.

When I was a child obvs living with my parents, they have recently got a new boiler & central heating.

Christmas morning the heating wouldn't come on, no hot water, nothing and it was freezing outside, snow and ice.

To my horror my parents said we'll have to call the engineer to sort this out, I was like no way, it's Christmas Day!

Anyway the heating engineer told them what to do on the phone, basically boil the kettle and pour hot water onto the pipe outside to defrost the ice. I was mortified they called the poor man. Panic over and it worked, day saved :-)

mrsconradfisher, my mum died at Christmas time too. It was such a sad time, especially as everyone else was in high spirits.

When I was about ten and my sister was 8, my grandparents bought her a bike for Christmas. I received a... briefcase
I was gutted 😂🙈

Mine was the one (about 13 years ago I think) where I had been running myself ragged doing all the things for everyone and working 4 jobs, and got pleurisy. Got to Christmas Day but felt absolutely dreadful. Exh had to cook dinner for the first time in his life and my God, the performance that was.

He's doing it again tomorrow and my dds, now 20 and 16 and with him this year, are texting me eye rolls and slander. He's apparently snappily delegating all the jobs to them and awaiting the inevitable taking of ALL the credit tomorrow. Quelle surprise. Both felt they had to go as his mum passed away earlier this month but both find him v difficult at the best of times so it's tough on them.

Another fun one was Christmas 2006. Dd1 was two, we'd had Norovirus the previous week, then on Christmas Eve my then husband and dd started throwing up again. I just sat and cried. Thankfully her sister wasn't around then so I only had the two of them to look after.

Hugs to everyone who's lost loved ones at Christmas.

Don't be sorry.

If you've ever had a truly bad Christmas, especially a bereavement, then that is bound to be the first think that comes to mind when a question asking about your worst ever is posted.

There are some weights that are too heavy for a "(lighthearted)" to bear, and the phrasing of the first part of the question is one of them. It could (and in my view should) have been worded differently. Because Christmas will never be a happy time for everyone

I was nearly 9 months pregnant and my waters had broken several days before, but I had no contractions. The hospital decided I should stay at home, but I had to go in every day (for a week) to be monitored. That journey to and from the hospital and the anxiety it provoked was terrible. Baby eventually arrived on the 27th!

The year I discovered all the DC had nits when they were opening stockings and not a drop of nit lotion in the house. You really know who your friends are when you can phone at 8 am on Christmas Day and say "Merry Christmas, got any nit lotion we can have?"

So sorry for everyone who has suffered a loss at Christmas time. I went to one funeral yesterday and have another on Friday. Today I visited a neighbour who lost his wife on Boxing Day last year. Christmas can be heartbreaking for some - the two widows from this week's funerals will always have sad memories at Christmas.

When I used to circle the Argos catalogue for gifts, a briefcase was always one 😆😆 never got one though, you were lucky 😆😆