Holiday Disasters

[TipsyTraveler]

Tis the season for family drama, crazy in-laws, burning the house down while trying to cook a turkey, and kids hating what Santa brought them. Do you have a holiday disaster story to share?

 

[tina.tina]

The only thing that I can think of that is remotely entertaining happened to me on Halloween last week.

The weather was rainy, cold, and nasty. I had worked really hard last week to set up a cool light display that involved bare trees in pots wrapped in lights. It took me a few hours over a couple of days to wrap all of the trees and get everything set the way I wanted it. Fuses kept blowing in the strands of lights and causing the whole display to go off. I'm sure I had too many lights plugged together but hoped it would last until trick or treating was over.

We got home from taking our kids around and the lights were off. I quickly reconfigured them and they looked good. I was in the driveway admiring our lights when the first trick or treater was coming up the street. I turned to admire the lights again and they were off. It was pretty much too dark and wet to try to re-work everything again. I just had to laugh at myself. Oh well, maybe next year.

 

[minkydog]

Tis the season for family drama, crazy in-laws, burning the house down while trying to cook a turkey, and kids hating what Santa brought them. Do you have a holiday disaster story to share?

No real flaming disasters, but we did have this one Thanksgiving...

I'm a nurse and I was scheduled to work the entire 4-day Thanksgiving weekend. Since it was just DH, DS-6, and me it didn't make sense to break my neck putting out a big dinner then. Instead, we had our turkey, dressing, and pie on the weekend prior to Thanksgiving.

On the real T-day, I went to work and left DH & DS home with pizza and a movie. When I got home, I called my mom to wish her happy day and put DS on the line. He immediately started crying and told my mom that we "didn't even have Thanksgiving." I thought my mom was going to drive up 400 miles and give me a thrashing! Once I calmed her down and explained she thought it was funny. (She's a nurse, too, so we had lots of alternate holidays when I was growing up.) Now, my in-laws were completely horrified that we didn't have a "proper Thanksgiving", but that's another story altogether...

 

[aaarcher86]

The running joke on Thanksgiving is asking if my MIL will be making her famous Flamin' Yams.

I'm sure you can guess why.

Aside from seeing family members we try to avoid the rest of the year and playing 'guess which girlfriend" my uncle will bring... There no real drama.

 

[snapppyd]

The running joke on Thanksgiving is asking if my MIL will be making her famous Flamin' Yams.

I'm sure you can guess why.

Aside from seeing family members we try to avoid the rest of the year and playing 'guess which girlfriend" my uncle will bring... There no real drama.

I know the feeling!

 

[swandiverpatt]

Fixing Christmas dinner, I was stabbing a sweet potato with a very sharp, pointy knife to pop into the microwave.

Missed the potato, stabbed myself in the fleshy part between the thumb and forefinger (all the way through).

Had a trip to the emergency room, where the doc on call said most of their people in the ER on Christmas were there due to kitchen accidents. A couple of stitches on both sides and I was good to go.

And I also got out of finishing up dinner.

 

[Diznygrl]

Brother's first time making the pies for Thanksgiving, he was so proud. Until we all took a bite of the pumpkin pie. He forgot the sugar.

 

[mrsv98]

Brother's first time making the pies for Thanksgiving, he was so proud. Until we all took a bite of the pumpkin pie. He forgot the sugar.

In our family, it is DSis and the famous pumpkin pie. She bought Pumpkin Pie mix instead of solid pumpkin and then followed the recipe. We had pumpkin soup that year...

 

[jdb in AZ]

During an extended-family T-day dinner at DBIL's house, their incontinent dog had an accident under the dining room table.

 

[SLP958]

I am betting on this year being a disaster like we have never seen before.

Barely tolerated MIL has been super inappropriate this year. I suspect this will be the craziest, most uncomfortable holiday yet.

For example, she threatened my Dad with "trouble" at DS's last ball game.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

Probably not considered a disaster to most, but for me it was.

I woke up extra early to get started on Thanksgiving lunch for my DH's family that was in town for Thanksgiving. I also had to cook a giant bird for my family that we would be eating at in the afternoon. I slaved in my kitchen for HOURS! All by myself making potatoes, broccoli casserole, green beans, corn pudding, rolls from scratch, pie, dressing, gravy, cranberries and turkey. I got out all of my nice dishes and made a beautiful table setting.

We sat down to eat any everyone said they weren't really hungry. Not hungry? You haven't eaten breakfast yet! They each made tiny plates, left food still on their plates and then pulled out a store bought pie my DMIL brought down with her to eat for dessert. Not one thank you or acknowledgement of anything tasting yummy. I made up some reason to leave and got in my car and drove to my moms where I lost it and cried like a baby. I had never felt so unappreciated in my life. When I got back I finished up my other Turkey which DH and I took to my grandparents where everyone said how juicy and tasty it was.

I learned my lesson. I no longer slave over a meal for my in-laws. We go out to eat on Thanksgiving.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Disaster prevented, I guess. My oven died two days before we had a bunch of people coming over for Thanksgiving dinner one year. We'd wanted to switch to gas (there's a hookup).

Contacted a store, no gas stoves available, only a cheap, bottom of the line oven. White. 4 burners and an oven. Storage tray. NOT what I wanted, but it needed to be delivered the next day.

I was so sad when it came - and the delivery guy, trying to cheer me up, said, "It's got a 10-year warranty!" So I had to put up with the oven for 10 years -- just passed the anniversary last year.

I really want a new oven.

 

[minkydog]

Probably not considered a disaster to most, but for me it was.

I woke up extra early to get started on Thanksgiving lunch for my DH's family that was in town for Thanksgiving. I also had to cook a giant bird for my family that we would be eating at in the afternoon. I slaved in my kitchen for HOURS! All by myself making potatoes, broccoli casserole, green beans, corn pudding, rolls from scratch, pie, dressing, gravy, cranberries and turkey. I got out all of my nice dishes and made a beautiful table setting.

We sat down to eat any everyone said they weren't really hungry. Not hungry? You haven't eaten breakfast yet! They each made tiny plates, left food still on their plates and then pulled out a store bought pie my DMIL brought down with her to eat for dessert. Not one thank you or acknowledgement of anything tasting yummy. I made up some reason to leave and got in my car and drove to my moms where I lost it and cried like a baby. I had never felt so unappreciated in my life. When I got back I finished up my other Turkey which DH and I took to my grandparents where everyone said how juicy and tasty it was.

I learned my lesson. I no longer slave over a meal for my in-laws. We go out to eat on Thanksgiving.

Oh, wow~ That's really awful. How can people be so rude to the people they are supposed to love? I'll never understand it. I would have done just what you did.

 

[Tinker'n'Fun]

I grew up is a very dysfunctional family. All holiday's were disasters. Married my husband. He "saw" what was happening. As soon as our children were old enough to understand, we broke away. Haven't had a disaster since.

Don't get me wrong, things may go wrong but we as a family can laugh about it.

 

[usd2bmd]

The running joke on Thanksgiving is asking if my MIL will be making her famous Flamin' Yams.

I'm sure you can guess why.

Aside from seeing family members we try to avoid the rest of the year and playing 'guess which girlfriend" my uncle will bring... There no real drama.

I can relate! We have decided to not have Thanksgiving with family to avoid any drama.

We have brunch for Christmas with my In-laws on Christmas Eve. Two years ago our oven died as we turned it on to cook the cinnamon rolls. Brunch ended up being eggs and pancakes. Christmas dinner ended up being pasta.

we can laugh now but I wanted to cry then.

 

[Diznygrl]

Probably not considered a disaster to most, but for me it was.

I woke up extra early to get started on Thanksgiving lunch for my DH's family that was in town for Thanksgiving. I also had to cook a giant bird for my family that we would be eating at in the afternoon. I slaved in my kitchen for HOURS! All by myself making potatoes, broccoli casserole, green beans, corn pudding, rolls from scratch, pie, dressing, gravy, cranberries and turkey. I got out all of my nice dishes and made a beautiful table setting.

We sat down to eat any everyone said they weren't really hungry. Not hungry? You haven't eaten breakfast yet! They each made tiny plates, left food still on their plates and then pulled out a store bought pie my DMIL brought down with her to eat for dessert. Not one thank you or acknowledgement of anything tasting yummy. I made up some reason to leave and got in my car and drove to my moms where I lost it and cried like a baby. I had never felt so unappreciated in my life. When I got back I finished up my other Turkey which DH and I took to my grandparents where everyone said how juicy and tasty it was.

I learned my lesson. I no longer slave over a meal for my in-laws. We go out to eat on Thanksgiving.

I consider that a disaster! My sympathies. It really sucks when you work so hard on something and it goes completely unappreciated by others.

 

[Deb in IA]

We have a non-food, non-cooking holiday "disaster".

DD was home from college for Thanksgiving.
She decided one day to go outside and "pull weeds" from our front landscaping around the house.



Unfortunately, the "weeds" were poison ivy.


Her hands were swollen, weepy messes, and she was in agony. She couldn't bend her fingers because of all the swelling. It was so bad, I took her to urgent care, because she had to go back to school the next day, and there was no way she could do her chem lab.

The doctor put her on steroids and after about a week, she was back to normal.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

One that comes to mind was an Easter event.

We lived on a hill (well, side of a small mountain, actually) where there was an amphitheater near the top. They had sunrise services there every Easter. Our church youth group would all meet at the church to carpool up the mountain for the sunrise services, and then we (my family) always volunteered to host breakfast (ham, eggs, BIG breakfast) for the group on the way back down the mountain before attending the regular Sunday service. We had tables set up in the living room, dining room and on the porch (lots of people).

One Easter, while everyone was eating, the bookshelves we had on the wall, you remember the kind where you would screw strips of wood to wall with a groove down the middle. And have brackets that would hook onto metal posts inside the groove? Well, they fell down. We kept our Encyclopedias on there (can't imagine why they would be a problem . Underneath the shelves we had cinder block & board bookshelves with plants on top. It was a big mess and startled everyone there. My mom kept on eating. Someone asked her "Aren't you going to clean that up?" She said, "Yes, after I finish eating. Why let my food get cold?".

Oh, yeah, then there was the time we were hosting a girl from Mexico (she was visiting with a group of college people touring the United States, doing home visits. Since she was one of the leaders of the group, we had all the piñata candies that were going to be used for the Christmas party at the end of the week. Well, the ants invaded, it wasn't pretty.

 

[Diznotyzed]

Years ago we were supposed to host Christmas dinner for our first time ever in our new-to-us house. Woke up to frozen pipes and our 3 year old daughter had a tummy bug. No water was bad enough, but no water and a barfing child was just too much. Everyone but us ended up going to my sister's instead.

 

[Disneychick75]

Not a disaster but could have been. I made cocoons which are pecan cookies dusted with powdered sugar. They were good but I waited a little too long to dust with sugar so I decided to stick them under the broiler. Went into the dining room for something and by the time I got back to the kitchen, flames were shooting out of the oven towards the ceiling. We had just had the kitchen remodeled- like a week before-and had to change the wallpaper above the oven that was scorched.