What was your grottiest Christmas? (Antidote to smug 'traditions' thread)

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I was beginning to puke reading that thread: "Oh, we have 467 people all singing in our barn, and the villagers have a tradition of tugging their forelocks at our dcs, all clad in their Boden pyjamas..."

Anyway, my worst Christmas was after my father died. My mother cancelled Christmas, stayed in bed and refused to participate. I sat downstairs with a bottle of Iceland wine (everywhere else was closed by the time I came home from work on Christmas Eve) and watched Casualty, in which most people were killed in unfestive pile-ups.

Wrecked by illness

Me, Dp and dd1 (who was just 3 at the time) had d&v

DD2 (who was 4m) was absolutely fine but was a complete milk monster at the time and it felt like I was bf constantly... it was truly awful

I think one of my worst was what should have been one of our best. DS was 2.5, DD 12 weeks, my "difficult"l parents were in OZ visiting my sister, we were going to have my PIL over for dinner, but on christmas day my lovely MIL was taken ill and diagnosed with cancer and had to be operated on on boxing day. A few weeks later FIL was diagnosed with a subdural haematoma.
Last Christmas was pretty awwful, my dsis was over from OZ and DB came up from London but my parents wouldn't put their very large and unruly dogs out for a bit and said we couldn't visit, so that was that. We did go for a bit but the dogs jumped all over my toddlers and knocked them over and Dad was drunk again anyway.

This year we are staying home and will have a lovely time with our two children and new baby.

I'm hoping I'll have a wonderful xmas this year. Me, the Dc and very close friends in a holiday cottage.

We all decided to shrug off any family responsibilities/ traditions and just plan to decamp to the middle of nowhere and eat lots of food , read books, drink wine and do what we like.

Dh & I both came down with flu and d/v one Christmas that went on for weeks on end. (dd managed to escape).

Last Christmas my parents came to stay for the first time since moving to our new house (didn't have room for them before). Cue massive argument a few days before Christmas (they had been here almost 2 weeks by then). Things were very very strained. DD threw up early Christmas morning and trailed it from her bedroom, down the stairs, over our door (she is a floor above us), and on top of me.

The trick is to lower your expectations. Tis only a day.

TDWP, that sounds like our best ever Xmas when kids were 3&1. Went to remote cottage on top of a mountain in Scotland, didn't do ANY Xmas stuff whatsoever (kids were blissfully unaware), it was the most stressfree Xmas ever.

Glad to hear that Mumblechum. It will be my first xmas as a lone parent and seemed like an ideal solution.

We will be exchanging small gifts and eating indulgent food, but there will be none of the usual fanfare.

TDWP - My first xmas without my dad was actually one of the best ones of my childhood Not because he wasn't there obv but it was just one of those ones where everything went right and peacefully

had a few shite ones.

when the cat ate not one but two turkeys.

when we were all ill with d&v.

when the cat was ill.

when i collapsed in a heap with an ectopic.

My worst Christmas was after my dad had died in the November and things were going from bad to worse with exh.

Mum came for Christmas dinner and I set the table for me, mum ex and dc's.

Ex walked out on Christmas morning and didn't come back all day. All the children asking where dad was, was he coming back and we were sat there with an empty place at teh table which of course made us think more of the fact that dad wasn't there [sob]!!

Left the bastard that year.

Wind on a couple of years - Christmas Eve, he had the boys and brought them home. They came into the house and ds2 who at that time was about 6 burst into tears. Ds1, about 10, very close. What was the matter?
Ex told them that he was never going to see them again.

Happy Bloody Christmas you f***r!!

He denied ever having said it a week later.

My worst Christmas, which thankfully didn't invove losing anyone (unless by murdering each other!) was the year dd1 was born.

Dh had to work offshore so I'd be alone with a 6mth old, an 8yo and 12yo. I was invited to stay with a v good friend & partner in London so gratefully accepted even though it meant a 600 mile drive.

A few days before we were due to leave ds2 went down with a vile stomach bug. He got over it and all seemed ok. Then two nights before travelling I got the bug and felt like death warmed up. I began to get over it but felt grotty and couldn't decide whether to go or not. We swithered and dithered and then dh said he would drive down with me and fly back to Scotland to go offshore so I decided to go.

We left at 3pm in the afternoon and had a looong trip, with dd1 screaming her head off in the car all the way along the M11/M25 at some stupid time in the wee small hours.

Got to friends and ds1 was promptly sick everywhere - he'd got the bug too. Dh had to leave us and I was beside myself trying to cope with all three dc. To boot, my friend's house was none too clean, inc an incontinent cat, and she had almost nothing to eat so I had to take the dc out to eat and I felt so weak from lack of food. Dd had just started crawling but with the dirt and cat shit, I couldn't put her down so she spent the entire time in her car seat, poor soul.

Friend's partner came back from a trip to Japan on Xmas Eve, went to bed and refused to get up until 3pm on Xmas Day, all the time saying my dc couldn't open their presents until he was there! He got up, the pair of them had some monstrous row and I was cringing in the bedroom, making plans to leave as decently possible.

I did stay on for a little while but then drove home, stopping overnight on the A1M. I missed the exit for the hotel and got lost, driving round the wilds of Catterick in the middle of the night! Almost home I stopped off at the supermarket where ds2 accidentally ran a trolley into my ankle causing such a severe injury it took almost a year to heal properly. When I eventually reached a safe haven I swore I'd never go away for Xmas again, and I never have.

God, that was long, sorry! More and more details kept coming to mind as I wrote.....

ooh you know, except I forgot last year with my dsis - the one whose back is so fked she can hardly move. She and her bf hosting dinner for 24 most of whom were his family and their partners (all in their 30s), selfish, shallow, backstabbers (actually that is being rather nice about them) who loathe and despise my dsis because how dare she go out with their dad (for TEN YEARS)! Except they hated me even more - at least my dsis dresses well!

We (me, dsis, db, dh) spent entire Xmas eve shopping for her guests and entire Xmas day cleaning and setting up her enormous house. Changed orders, yelling at all her helpers, nobody can find anything, everything running late, no lunch because the dining room has to be rearranged 3 times, burnt appetizers, caterers given wrong instructions, etc.

Dinner just at ds's bedtime so scrapings left for me, then vile people left (phew) and presents at about 10pm. Oh and I did it all with no booze as 9mo ds had decided his Xmas pressie would be 1.5hrly bfs!

When I spent Xmas and New Year alone. I was 20.
DD will never have to suffer that, I am determined.
PMSL at OP and Boden pyjamas.

My worst was grim but in a very dark, surreal way.

To set the scene:

My lovely dad had had leukaemia for several years. Went through various chemo/radiotherapy and was in remission.

However stoically he faced a variety of horrible tests/treatments and illness-related ailments, he was, however, a life-long sufferer of the most stereotypical bouts of man-flu ever seen. At the first sight of a sniffle he'd retire to bed with a vat of vicks and a case of kleenex, all the time providing regular updates on the imminence of his demise.

So this particular Christmas he was in a hale & hearty remission, when he started sneezing. At once doom and gloom descended and he took to his bed. Where he remained for days.

Come Christmas Day, mum & I were torn between wanting to do him bodily harm for making everything so miserable and being worried that he was actually, Really Ill.

We started drinking early. And several times during the day, we sneaked into the bedroom and held a mirror under his nose to make sure he was still breathing.

By the evening we were in mild hysterics, which culminated in total collapse around 4pm when he got up, announcing he was feeling better, was starving, and what were we both laughing at.

Reading this back we sound really uncaring, but it honestly was funny in an awful way. Dad appreciated the humour, and we did have a couple more happier Christmasses with him after that.

Well my real bad Christmasses were the ones where my dad would be giving my mum a good hiding and then would appear with some f** mistletoe and we would all be expected to be cheerful...or else.

But that is a long time ago now and the ones I prefer to moan about are the ones at the in laws, where FIL hates Christmas (spending money, having to be grateful and spend time with his family all in one go). So we open presents to a strict timetable with FIL asking how much longer we are going to be, so that MIL can put the dinner on the table at exactly 1pm - so that we can spend the rest of the day in resentful silence and boredom with nothing else to do. Never, never again!

Can't really think of one but my Mum's worst Christmas was as follows

I had chicken pox
My little brother was 3 weeks old
The twin tub broke down
It snowed

Our worst Christmas was when we found out at a scan on Dec 22nd that the child I was carrying in my second pregnancy had so many complications that he wasn't "compatible with life".
DH and I decided not to tell anyone until after the festive period.

DS1 was 11 months old, and we had been really excited about his first Christmas.
My SIL had three month old twins, who everyone was (understandably) fussing over on Christmas Day.

At 2pm I got a phone call to say that my lovely Great Uncle had died.

I remember queuing for over an hour in the January sale at Clarkes, in order to get DS1 fitted with his first pair of shoes, so he could wear them to the two funerals - the shop assistant insisted on taking a photo of him, and he wouldn't sit still. He pulled his shoe off, and it flung up and hit another assistant on the head. They were not pleased.

A kind turn of fate was that DS3 was born exactly one year to the day that we found out the news about DS2, so that day is now associated with happy memories as well as sad ones .

My mum's worst, I think, was the year my English grandmother summoned all her four children to a Big Family Christmas in Folkestone. The whole thing went utterly pear-shaped, as could have been completely predicted. My father and his BIL hate each other (strange, because they share many of the same social failings and are both academics). My grandmother didn't like my mum (possibly because my mum is Indian). My Swedish grandfather took refuge in his deafness, as usual, to refrain from talking to anyone. My youngest aunt, aged then around 25, said things like 'anyone over 30 is middle-aged' a lot. My cousins and I did NOT get on (we do now) and also disgraced ourselves on Christmas day, apparently, by refusing sprouts. We came back from a walk on Boxing Day to be told by my grandfather that my grandmother Could Not Cope and wanted us to leave. So we drove back to Norwich.

(My grandmother quite often ended our visits in this way, either by note or by dispatching her husband as her mouthpiece.)

My worst x-mas was 6 years ago when my auntie gave up her fight for breast cancer, x-mas was her favourate day, i have never known anyone love x-mas as much as she did, it was like she hung in there until x-mas day so she she could enyoy it for the last time. She died in the afternoon .

Evry year i make sure x-mas is the happiest day of the year.

Bit morbid - but when I was a teenager my mother had a mental breakdown and moved away from home. She used to visit on Christmas day just for a couple of hours because she couldn't handle the whole family thing, and one Christmas she said to me that next year she would spend the whole day with us. She didn't.

That was the grottiest.

christmas 1990. still reeling from my mum's suicide in august, we congregated at my nan's for the same christmas we always had (probably had no idea what else to do) and the whole thing was horribly poisoned by grief.

or

christmas 2006. following my brother's graduation to terminal cancer patient in october, which also meant he'd lost the use of his legs, his in laws suggested that both families spend christmas together. we rented a big place in norfolk and had a huge festive gathering.

the place was lovely, there was much good cheer and everyone kept their spirits up. but the reason why we were all there hung over us all, the knowledge that it would probably be his last christmas seeping in every time we had to manoeuvre his wheelchair over the gravel or help him in and out of bed. i didn't know what to buy him so got what i would have if everything was normal, then felt like an idiot when i saw him unwrapping the big book he'd never have time to read. the holiday cottage had a beautiful indoor swimming pool, but he couldn't use it. on boxing day eve we sat round the table drinking wine + playing board games; i got more and more over-the-top jolly until DP took me out for a walk and i spent half an hour sitting by the seafront in the dark shrieking with tears.

Oh fck, cyteen, that's just awful.

cyteen..you got me there tears welling up even now

cheers both. it certainly did suck. my family are not really big on christmas any more!