What was your worst Xmas ever? (Lighthearted)

[unmemorableusername]

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.

A few years ago, I was 38 weeks pregnant and DD 2.5. We were waking at home then heading to MILs late morning for Christmas dinner. Arrived as planned to MIL and her partner absolutely knackered and upset as they’d been up in A&E with her partners mum until about 5am. Awkwardly sat around all afternoon while they were upset, DD was excited 2 year old and I couldn’t even have a drink to take the edge off. Why they hell they hadn’t rung us and said come later I’ll never know. We vowed to always be at home after that!

But for all those that have experienced loss at this time of year, I hope you have fond memories that can be remembered to ease the hurt.

I lost a great uncle on Xmas eve many years ago, was like in a film, he fell asleep in front of the fire and never woke up.

light hearted version - my delightful children opening their stockings without me - I was DEVASTATED 😫 they were 3 and 5 I think 😆 or quite possibly the one where my back went - Xmas day was not amusing that day, I was on my back by the patio doors as it was the only space big enough to lie out and not be in someone’s way 😆🤦🏽‍♀️

I once owned a convertible Peugeot 206. It was a small car with a tiny boot that was 90% full of the roof folding gubbins. We were having some family and friends for Boxing Day and I had gone shopping on around the 23rd December to get all the food (a few hundred quids worth which was a lot 11 years ago) and squeeze it in the boot.
I get home from Tesco and discover that I cannot press in the boot button. Hmm. I squeeze and pull and lock and unlock and turn the key each and every way to no joy. DH tries, no luck. Now because it's a convertible, the boot compartment was sorted of a metal box so we couldn't just take the back seats down like you could in a normal car.
We sit and we stew. We keep periodically jiggling and wiggling it. On Christmas Eve I drive to any and all car related shops and businesses I can think of and at one point ask a man in Halfords if I can borrow an axe to cut the boot off my car.
On Christmas Day DH has googled the car manual and discovers there is an access hole approx 3x4 inches behind one of the back seats (which are moulded and screwed into the metal frame. We rip the back seats off and DH spends about 2 hours pulling singular potatoes and other small items that had all been coated in what was once Ben and Jerry's ice cream out of the hole, using the handle of a Hello Kitty umbrella.
He eventually removes enough stuff to see that one of the handles of a bag for life is jammed in the boot lock and managed to wiggle it free at which point we could dispose of the rest of our rancid food and stare forlornly at the state of my car.
Christmas ruined and car sold on January 2nd. Put off Peugeot's for life.

When single I’d been out on the hoy the night before, so slightly fragile. Dad did all the cooking at Christmas and usually was great. Except. He’d forgotten to do roasties, or carrots. There were sprouts (which I hate) and frozen peas, but mum and dad firmly believed in cooking veg until they were truly dead. And the smallest turkey breast known to man. I was fucking starving. And there were no paracetamol in the house.

37 weeks pregnant at ex MIL’s. She had made a huge fuss of Xmas dinner and I was starving, we all waited and waited until about 6pm, no one allowed to ‘spoil their appetite’, but being pregnant she had shoved a few quality street at me, I was so hungry, everyone was ex SIL was breastfeeding!

Sat down couldnt wait to get my food, it was cauliflower cheese. I’m veggie but she had assured me she had catered, refused to let me bring anything, and that was it. Spuds, carrots, parsnips in goose fat, Brussels with bacon, gravy with meat juices.

so that was it. Just cauliflower. I actually welled up and blamed it on the baby hormones!

i was about 7 maybe. Mum got drunk on Christmas Eve. I think because she had not got any presents for us. Woke up Christmas morning to foreign dolls that had been in our living room for ever on a wee shelf. All dusty. Played with them anyway.

Miserable Christmas at the in-laws. There was no buffer of DHs GPs as they had passed away and both siblings elsewhere, so just us and them.
DH spent weeks saying how brilliant/fun/magical it would be. It was the opposite.
MIL refused to open presents for hours, sulked about what she got and gave her usual passive aggressive gifts. Then locked herself in the kitchen to ‘cook’. Refused to let us eat all day because we needed to save ourselves for the ‘feast’. DH sat alone in the living room all day watching tv, it was boring and we were very hungry.
Eventually we ate a hugely overcooked and terrible tiny meal at 8.30pm, accompanied by a lecture on gluttony and the need to diet. I then got crippling indigestion.
DH on the way home started going on about how brilliant it had been, until I set him straight.
There were more miserable Christmas days with them but at ours so there was good food and plentiful.

First Christmas post-divorce being finalized, spent the preceding 12 months battling with the ex to sell the former martial home, split up with boyfriend (I'd separated from the exh 5 years before, he was a litigious bastard hence me finally taking him to court to sell the house), it had been quite a year.

My mum walks in, kids still in pj's, lounge a bombsite. "It's a disgusting mess in here", as she walked straight through to the kitchen. Really destroyed my festive mood!

Once drive 4.5 hours on Christmas Day with my now DH to see and stay with his parents. We arrived at time we said we would. Text with hour to go too. Arrived to empty cold house. They were in the pub totally wasted. They come home to let's us in after us sitting on drive for 30 mins. MIL was too drunk to cook they all fell asleep at 4pm. DH and I ordered a Chinese for our Xmas dinner.

I can laugh about it now but at the time I was fuming.

Three spring to mind, all very minor so I'm lucky I know.

First as a rather over sensitive teen, my parents completely forgot to give me any of my presents. I watched everybody else opening and exclaiming over theirs, fighting back tears but not wanting to sound like a brat by saying "where's mine?"
They discovered them days later in the boot of the car and were mystified about why I didn't say something.

Second, we all got a stomach bug (I think it was a bug anyway) and threw up after the turkey...took turns to use the toilet then went home early.

Third, my ds was excited to get a build it yourself robot for his main present. It was a Covid year so quieter than usual, I thought it would help fill the time. Except the damn thing was impossible to build and we all spent hours wrestling with it and ended up in a foul mood.

As an emmetophobe the worst one was being woken by my 6 year old throwing up at 6am followed by the 2 year old at 7am
I think it was norovirus as it was awful

Same Xmas...... Xmas eve I was told I had cancer (all clear now) then on Xmas day I was alone and ate pizza 😢

Trapped by my MAGA BIL and nephew. Apparently I am too stupid to understand politics. So glad that my sister has stopped talking to me or inviting me to anything. No idea why but it suits me just fine.

Very nearly this one!

DS1 (7yo) has a birthday in November, so I'm really organised and get all the presents in and allocate them to birthday and Christmas well in advance. We leave them in delivery boxes so that they can't be discovered.

I've been ill, DS2 (1yo) required trip to A&E yesterday plus a return trip to hospital this morning (all fine). DH had to do the Christmas food shop and last minute bits for extended family.

We only just got to the wrapping at 8pm with kids in bed... And not one of the toys we ordered for DS1 has actually arrived! 😭 I thought I was going to pass out...

Luckily, I had bought a couple of books last weekend, and we had a diary and another book bought earlier, but that was it!
Anyway, after a lot of some panicking, I got on Facebook and found someone selling a selection of games that he will actually love: Block Party, Roald Dahl Brainbox Board Game, Minecraft Uno. I have never been so bloody grateful for social media in my life.

Major rethink about organisation next year! Just bloody gutted he won't have his remote control poo, cats in boxes game, or a Rubik's cube. 😭

I had food poisoning and couldn't eat or drink a thing all day

The Christmas I was 5. When we woke up, my Dad sat me and my little sister down and solemnly told us that our Mum had been taken to hospital in the middle of the night.

I burst into tears and was inconsolable. Not because Mum was in hospital but because I'd missed seeing the ambulance!

Mum had appendicitis and made a full recovery.

I've had some hideously busy and very sad Christmases at work over the years, but at home the worst one was probably when we all had norovirus in the days beforehand. Everyone else was improving but I succumbed on Christmas Eve. I don't think I got out of bed at all on Christmas Day. Our children were quite young and I felt awful about letting them down but I just couldn't move I was so ill. I have no idea what anyone ate or did all day or what happened to the turkey!
The year we got married and hosted DH's family for the first time was not great either. I thought I had been super organised - veg was all prepped, turkey in the oven with the timer set etc - so we all went to Church then out for a walk. In my mind, I was going to impress everyone with how in control and unstressed I was by the whole thing. Everyone would enjoy my fabulously prepared meal whilst I wafted serenely around looking relaxed after our refreshing walk. But when we arrived back at the house the smell of roasting turkey was conspicuous by its absence. I'd set the timer for pm not am. We had Christmas dinner for our evening meal...

Not my worst by far however as it's light-hearted...

My dad decided to BBQ the turkey one year, thinking (hoping) it would be ready by 2pm.

The family finally sat down to eat at 8pm 🤣 I'm a midwife and was on shift that day but I had great, great fun reading the WhatsApp updates within the family group chat, including photos of my dad in his shorts, under an umbrella, silently cursing.

We're in the UK by the way, and his subsequent attempt went very well!

I must have been 6, and had ear ache Christmas Eve. Woke up Christmas morning still in pain, went downstairs and it was like santas grotto presents everywhere.

I opened a present and thought they were round squidgy sweets so popped in into my mouth- they were bubble bath balls. Tried rinsing my mouth out with water but all that would come out was bubbles. Felt really sorry for myself that Christmas!

About ten years ago we went over to my nans husbands for Christmas, he's a misogynist pig and nobody can stand him, very weird pairing. He spent the day stuck in a chair not moving but dishing out orders making slew comments about my sisters weight then to top it off My nan came out after dinner and changed into a rara skirt (she was early 70's) and was brushing past my uncles FIL trying to get him to catch a glimpse and it was the weirdest day, oh and i got one present which was a small bag of fudge to share with my sister😂

About 8 years ago I found out my DP was cheating on me on Christmas Eve. He was supposed to be coming to my parents house for Christmas with me and he said he still planned to come! Obviously he didn’t.

I was feeling quite charitable at the time and said he could keep his presents. I wish I hadn’t; he said I could keep mine and I received an adult colouring book and some pens 😂 I had given him a cashmere jumper and coffee machine. It later transpired he was cheating with a colleague of ours (we worked together) and I always used to see her wearing the coat and shoes I had picked out for him to wrap. He was about 32 and she was 18, it was very odd.

This Christmas isn’t great so far as I have hand, foot and mouth and a mouth full of ulcers!

Last year. Staying at my parents house, woke up at 5am on the floor as the air bed has deflated itself. My pillow was somehow on the other side of the room, I stumbled across the room to retrieve it, trip over one of the dogs, and pull the Christmas tree down. On the way down, the Christmas tree hits the tv off the stand, and smashes the nativity set.

The dogs start barking, my nieces and nephews wake up and start running around screaming with excitement so my sister is cussing me, the cat climbs in the tree and won’t come out, my mum is shouting that her gorgeous tree is ruined, my brother-in-law is repeating “yeah the TV’s definitely broken!”, my partner is pissing himself laughing in the corner and being told off by my dad for laughing, and then to top it all off, one of the dogs cocked his leg on the pile of presents.

I then had to break to news to them that I’d forgotten the orange juice for the Buck’s Fizz…

I’m surprised I was invited back this year. Luckily, I woke up this morning with the air bed intact and my pillow under my head where it belongs.

Merry Christmas to you all!🎄

When I was 17 my mum forgot to buy me a Christmas present.

The year before,we'd had an awful christmas and due to no fault of my own,we where banned from my parents house

(It's a long story,but they attacked me with a carving knife)

The following year,I was determined to make it special for the kids

Saved and spent a fortune on presents and food

Spent forever 'making the magic' for them-all was going well,until ds1 stood up

He was white-ive never seen him so ill-vomiting bug,which swept through the whole family-just in time for Xmas day

Worst christmas ever

OMG @oustedbymymate what was their response the next day? Where they embarrassed and mortified at doing that to you?