Holiday Disasters

[snapppyd]

Oh, I can top both of these!

In one of our first Christmases (before we had children), DH & I lived in a nice house & had decorated it w/ all the latest electronics & nicest furnishings. I even had new carpet installed.

Our neighborhood was nice, but our neighbors (especially the man) were crazy! W/ a capital C. We tried to avoid them as much as possible.

Well, that particular Christmas, our idiot neighbor decided to make the exterior of his house look like a freaking airport runway. But, because he wasn't very smart, the first time he tried to turn the awful lights on, they kept going off & on & just literally blinding my DH & me. My DH ended up tripping down our stairs while carrying a tray & ruining our new carpet!

They also had their horrid family visiting them who parked an ugly trashy camper between our houses. I won't even try to explain the view I had in the mornings when the cousin would empty the camper's toilet tank... I mean, talk about needing your brain bleach! The smell literally prevented DH from going on his morning run.

But Christmas Eve was the worst! DH & I were having a nice quiet adult dinner, when suddenly, this huge tree comes crashing through our window! Our neighbor had apparently decided to cut down a tree in their yard on Christmas Eve!

And, because my DH wouldn't confront him, I decided that I had to because, seriously, enough was enough! But, when I marched over to knock on their front door, our neighbor opened the door & THREW a wild squirrel onto me & then I was attacked by this huge beastly dog! OMG! I was terrified!

Since Christmas Eve was basically ruined for us after that, I retired to my room w/ a washcloth on my head... only to be interrupted by the SWAT team bursting through my bedroom door!

Apparently, my neighbor had kidnapped his boss. Seriously.

Fortunately, Todd (my DH) & I have since moved.

But that was definitely our worst ever Christmas Eve.

Did you at least get a jelly of the month subscription??

 

[DizBelle]

Oh, I can top both of these!

In one of our first Christmases (before we had children), DH & I lived in a nice house & had decorated it w/ all the latest electronics & nicest furnishings. I even had new carpet installed.

Our neighborhood was nice, but our neighbors (especially the man) were crazy! W/ a capital C. We tried to avoid them as much as possible.

Well, that particular Christmas, our idiot neighbor decided to make the exterior of his house look like a freaking airport runway. But, because he wasn't very smart, the first time he tried to turn the awful lights on, they kept going off & on & just literally blinding my DH & me. My DH ended up tripping down our stairs while carrying a tray & ruining our new carpet!

They also had their horrid family visiting them who parked an ugly trashy camper between our houses. I won't even try to explain the view I had in the mornings when the cousin would empty the camper's toilet tank... I mean, talk about needing your brain bleach! The smell literally prevented DH from going on his morning run.

But Christmas Eve was the worst! DH & I were having a nice quiet adult dinner, when suddenly, this huge tree comes crashing through our window! Our neighbor had apparently decided to cut down a tree in their yard on Christmas Eve!

And, because my DH wouldn't confront him, I decided that I had to because, seriously, enough was enough! But, when I marched over to knock on their front door, our neighbor opened the door & THREW a wild squirrel onto me & then I was attacked by this huge beastly dog! OMG! I was terrified!

Since Christmas Eve was basically ruined for us after that, I retired to my room w/ a washcloth on my head... only to be interrupted by the SWAT team bursting through my bedroom door!

Apparently, my neighbor had kidnapped his boss. Seriously.

Fortunately, Todd (my DH) & I have since moved.

But that was definitely our worst ever Christmas Eve.

"Why is the carpet wet, TODD?"

"I don't KNOW, Margo."

 

[wishesuponastar]

I was newly married and 23 yrs old when we decided to have his siblings over for dinner party near Thanksgiving. I was feeling proud that I made a pumpkin pie from scratch, including baking the pumpkin for the flesh. Well, my sis-in-law took a bite of the pie and there were pumpkin strings on her fork

I didn't have a blender and thought I had cut up the strings well enough NOT realizing you are supposed to throw away the strings.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

One year my cousin showed up uninvited with his disastrous dog, his wife cooked the turkey so long it was completely dry. My great aunts cat (don't even ask how that showed up at my house) chewed the wire to the Christmas tree and it started on fire burning it to a crisp. I got a new tree from outside but little did I know that there was a killer squirrel living inside of it.

Not to mention my work decided to not give me the Christmas bonus I was planning on using to put in an in-ground pool, instead I got a membership to the Jelly of the Month Club. There were cops involved and the swat team.

What a year!!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

No actually they didnt, just because someone sets a time you cant make someone be hungry and by her own admission theop left to go to her parents and cry so she didnt give anyone a chance to thank her,. This one is all on her

Meh.

Don't accept an invite to a holiday meal regardless of the time if you plan to be stuffed. It is just rude, period.

If she was doing all this cooking while there and they had not realized the effort--they could have pulled their hostess aside and apologize that they ate a big breakfast and all the food would not be necessary.

But showing up for meal without plans to eat it was just rude.

I can't make you be hungry--but stuffing yourself to the point where you can it eat the meal you have been invited to is just bad manners. And I doubt everyone had medical reason for lack of hunger.

 

[Becc1]

Some would call it a disaster, we call it our memorable Christmas! After opening gifts at our house, we pack the car up and head to PA to my inlaws every year. One year when our oldests were just 7 yrs old and 4 months DH called his parents to make sure it wasn't snowing yet, they had been calling for snow that day. They said absolutely no snow so we head out. What is normally a 2 hour drive, turned into a 5 hour drive. They were points we had to stop because DH literally could not see, in the end our car ended up getting stuck at the bottom of inlaws street and a neighbor had to come rescue us.

We then continue on with our day, have lunch and start to open presents. As we are opening gifts (which is like a 3 hour ordeal) the power goes out. And stays out for the rest of the night. They ended up grilling our dinner on the grill, ate our meal by candlelight and we spent the evening by the fireplace, thankfully DS had gotten some board games so that was our entertainment

 

[kaytieeldr]

One year my cousin showed up uninvited with his disastrous dog, his wife cooked the turkey so long it was completely dry. My great aunts cat (don't even ask how that showed up at my house) chewed the wire to the Christmas tree and it started on fire burning it to a crisp. I got a new tree from outside but little did I know that there was a killer squirrel living inside of it.

Not to mention my work decided to not give me the Christmas bonus I was planning on using to put in an in-ground pool, instead I got a membership to the Jelly of the Month Club. There were cops involved and the swat team.

What a year!!

Yo, Clark! Merry Christmas. What's up with your next vacation?

 

[ronandannette]

Yo, Clark! Merry Christmas. What's up with your next vacation?

Oh yeah, who WOULDN'T love to see what would happen if they actually made it INTO Wally World? Of course the Griswalds must be in their mid-seventies with teenage grand kids by now, but Cousin Eddie on a scooter? I can't wait!

 

[marthachick]

We have had a few not so great holidays.

1- Thanksgiving 1999. FIL was having chest pains all during dinner. He was fine (he said repeatedly). He ate like there was no tomorrow. Kept having chest pains. DH tried to get him to call 911, but he refused. MIL was fussing about having cooked all day and we HAD to eat and that FIL would be ok. DH finally pitched a fit and told FIL he WAS going to ER. Turns out, he had a heart attack and was in the hospital for weeks after that.

2- Christmas 2000 or so…we ate out on December 23. I got food poisoning and missed Christmas Eve at Mom’s. Missed all of the good food and presents. Didn’t even want to get up to see DS open gifts from Santa. Missed Christmas Day at in-laws. And for some reason that year, FIL had bought DSon a bunch of mail order crap that was not age appropriate for him. Nothing bad, just stuff like trinkets to sit around that would be interesting to a 90 year old aunt or something. Nothing a child would want. And 1 small box of building blocks that didn’t have enough pieces to build anything. DSon kept opening all of these presents and DH said he could see the disappointment but DSon never said anything but thank you. After that year, we told in-laws we would buy DSon’s presents from them. They could just tell us how much $ to spend and we would find something in that price range from them.

3- Last year, DSis-in-law wasn’t at Mom’s for Thanksgiving. We found out later that weekend it was because my brother was cheating on her (not the first time!) and she was done with him. Christmas was very tense and other brother was afraid DSis & me would start a fuss. We behaved because we didn’t want to ruin (or further ruin) Mom’s Christmas.

And 2 separate years our Christmas tree fell – once about 1 hour before our Christmas party and the other time when I was gone to get medicine for sick DSon and DH was painting something in the house. I came home & the Christmas tree was in the front yard & DSon was crying. The tree had fallen and DH (though not so dear at the time!) had paint on his hands and couldn’t take time to wash it off and just threw the tree out in the front yard. Yeah, he hasn’t lived that one down yet & it has been 15+ years. Since then, we have bought a better Christmas tree stand.

 

[Mortlives]

We got a phone call before 6am on Christmas Eve many years ago, because my Grandma had started her holiday cooking before the crack of dawn and had a heart attack. That was not a fun Christmas, but she survived for almost 20 years after that.

Driving to my Grandpa's on Christmas Day another year, we got a flat tire. Couldn't get it fixed, couldn't get to Grandpa's. Couldn't even get the spare out of the trunk (why they use 800 pound gorillas to fasten those things in, I will never know). DFIL came and picked us up and took us there for Christmas. So we weren't alone, but I was sad about not getting to see my family.

 

[Praying Colonel]

My mother and father married young and Mom says she was unprepared to make her first Thanksgiving dinner*, but she gave it a go. She took the turkey, still frozen and wrapped in plastic, and put it in the oven to bake it. Lots of tears for her, she says, and they had TV dinners for Thanksgiving dinner that year.




*--Dad was working Thanksgiving morning at the grocery store, so even back then there were people having to work during Thanksgiving--but that's another thread.

 

[bound2travel]

Holiday disasters - which one do you want?

1. First Thanksgiving after my Mom passed. Dad was in nursing home due to injury. Bro #3 wanted to cook turkey. Bro #1 wanted to go out to eat. Bro #1's stepson decided to help Bro #3 clean carport - but fell from the ladder. Had to show Bro #1 how to get to hospital. Then I visited my Dad. Bro #3 shows up with turkey sandwich (he cooked turkey) for Dad. I went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. Bro #1's stepson broke ankle.

2. First Christmas after my Mom passed. Dad finally in rehab for injury (thankfully it was a different place than the nursing home as that was where my Mom was when she passed). Bro #1 with wife and stepson come back for Christmas. He and his family open their gifts to one another before Bro #3 and I even wake up. Then he expected me to open my gift before Bro #3 got up. Bro #1 cooks turkey. Turkey drippings spilled in oven, but he didn't bother cleaning it as he had to leave for home. Bro#1 hands me back the present I gave him and tell me to keep it so he can look at it at my house (hasn't been to my house yet). Bro #3 and I turn on self-cleaning for oven. It catches fire due to all the drippings.

Mom passed in 2001, Dad in 2003. I prefer holidays with friends.

 

[NFLDERS]

Holiday disasters - which one do you want?

1. First Thanksgiving after my Mom passed. Dad was in nursing home due to injury. Bro #3 wanted to cook turkey. Bro #1 wanted to go out to eat. Bro #1's stepson decided to help Bro #3 clean carport - but fell from the ladder. Had to show Bro #1 how to get to hospital. Then I visited my Dad. Bro #3 shows up with turkey sandwich (he cooked turkey) for Dad. I went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. Bro #1's stepson broke ankle.

2. First Christmas after my Mom passed. Dad finally in rehab for injury (thankfully it was a different place than the nursing home as that was where my Mom was when she passed). Bro #1 with wife and stepson come back for Christmas. He and his family open their gifts to one another before Bro #3 and I even wake up. Then he expected me to open my gift before Bro #3 got up. Bro #1 cooks turkey. Turkey drippings spilled in oven, but he didn't bother cleaning it as he had to leave for home. Bro#1 hands me back the present I gave him and tell me to keep it so he can look at it at my house (hasn't been to my house yet). Bro #3 and I turn on self-cleaning for oven. It catches fire due to all the drippings.

Mom passed in 2001, Dad in 2003. I prefer holidays with friends.

Fun read loved the style of writting you chose. Who's cooking this Thanksgiving?

 

[bound2travel]

Fun read loved the style of writting you chose. Who's cooking this Thanksgiving?

Not me!!! I was invited to a friend's house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. All I had to bring was soda.

No leftovers, but no cooking, cleaning and no hassle

 

[lauradis]

Well, on Christmas Eve DH gets a call from his mother. I can tell by the look on his face that the conversation isn't a good one. Turns out she is REAMING him out for not inviting her to go with us out to dinner on New Year's Eve later that week. We live in NC near MIL. She has us all to herself for every holiday...except for NYE which she doesn;t "do" because she hates staying up late. My parents, who live in NY and I only see once a year, were coming to visit for NYE, and MIL hates my parents, and they equally dislike her. So I made reservations for just the 4 of us to go out to a NYE late dinner (like 11pm).

MIL assumed she would be invited...why I don't know. And layed into DH telling him he was a selfish...insert *****-friendly words here...and that she had bought a new fancy outfit to wear to this dinner (I don't even know how she KNEW about the dinner...DH probably mentioned it offhandedly at some point) and her whole universe was ruined, and it was unforgiveable...railing on and on and on....and then she told him HE SHOULD KILL HIMSELF.

Nope. Not joking/exaggerating here folks.

She hung up on him...He was floored, and pretty upset. I was seeing red and it was all I could do not to call her up myself and tell her off. DH called back after a bit and she screamed some more...and then wanted to know what time we'd be coming over tomorrow, ya know, for Christmas.

I don't even know how it happened...how we came to the conclusion that we should go, but we actually WENT to her house the next day. We ate in icy silence, we opened gifts in icy silence (and we left every gift she gave us behind when we left her house). She bounced around the house in what we later determined to be a manic upswing. then we left.

We cut her out of our lives for the most part after that. There were other incidents she caused, but that was the beginning of her end.

Oh my mil has done this to her son. The first time i heard her may 1995, she was giving him the your a horrible son lecture was at Memorial day picnic at her house. I was standing around the corner listening for couple of mins, interrupted faking sickness to go home aka escape. She was very sweet and called me later to see if I was all right, that's when I calmly informed her that she was never to treat my husband that way. Lets just say she was very upset and didn't talk to us for couple of months.

She tried to do it in front of the kids twice, the First time she did it to him in front of our children I informed him that I would kick her out of the house if she ever dared to do it again. Sure as sunshine she did it again some time in 2005? Its always at holidays or birthday parties. Im so proud of him, he asked her nicely to leave and told her this behavior will not be tolerated.

Anyways, he does love her and she can be the most caring woman. But she really has ruined any chance of a real relationship with two of her sons, because she refuses to treat them as grown men.

 

[Pugsly]

A couple of years ago, my son was living with my sister while completing a summer internship. Allegedly there was an issue over a girl between my son and nephew. And my sister got in the middle of the argument between these two young adults. That Thanksgiving, she and her husband completely ignored my son (while he and my nephew were at least civil). Ever since, we dread holidays and are thankful when they have plans to be elsewhere.

This year, they were not coming. Our first grandchild just arrived last week and we were thrilled to have both of DH's (adult) children here, along with my son and parents to meet the baby. Oh - and DH's b-day fell on Thanksgiving. My step-daughter hates her brother and has decided she doesn't want him anywhere near her baby. So they spent most of the day holed-up in one of the spare bedrooms with baby, and came out long enough to eat and open the gifts my parents had bought for baby. Both my mom and I were hurt and DH is ticked that they acted this way.

So much for a drama-free holiday.

 

[Tozzie]

Meh.

Don't accept an invite to a holiday meal regardless of the time if you plan to be stuffed. It is just rude, period.

If she was doing all this cooking while there and they had not realized the effort--they could have pulled their hostess aside and apologize that they ate a big breakfast and all the food would not be necessary.

But showing up for meal without plans to eat it was just rude.

I can't make you be hungry--but stuffing yourself to the point where you can it eat the meal you have been invited to is just bad manners. And I doubt everyone had medical reason for lack of hunger.

Where do you get that they "stuffed" themselves beforehand as thqt wasn't in the original thread. Just becuase smeone isn't hungry doesn't mena they ate before hand and jsut because the op thought her meal was yummy as she put it doesn't mean it was maybe the food was horrible and the inlaws said tey weren't hungry not to upset her, I don't know about other people but I dont' care how lon g you cooked for If I don't like the food I won't eat it to just be "polite" either. Everyone is entitled to their own opiion I am giving the inlaws the benefit of the doubt on this one.

 

[tinkerbellfan6880]

My family lost power when we were eating dinner just before 5pm on Thursday. Nothing like eating dinner in the dark. Power did come back on just before 6pm.

 

[HM]

This year my sisters hot water heater went out the day before thanksgiving. Since it also runs their heat, they had neither warm water or heat. Not sure if it got fixed yet or not.

 

[LuvN~Travel]

I'm going to get a dig in on my in-laws.
They come to my house for every holiday for 25 years.
Only once, did my inlaws invited us to their house and it was Christmas Eve.


My family all went to Christmas Eve Mass, and then stopped in at their house.
Everyone was starving, everyone had worked that day and then went to church. My kids were all in highschool and in college.
MIL announces, she just kept things small and didn't want to make a lot of fuss. Me and my dh just looked at each other, because we knew what "fuss" meant, "no food".

We had carrots and dip and jello mixed with coolwhip.

When we all realized "that was it" and there was no supper, she huffed down to the basement and brought up Christmas Cookies that she was going to take to work the next day to share with her co-workers. By then we were all putting on our coats and we grabbed a cookie and left. She was handing out her Christmas cards to the kids too with $5.00. (shouldn't complain, a gift is a gift).

The next day, I get up and make a huge breakfast with my dh. He loves cooking. Guess who walks in the door-my inlaws. They said it just didn't seem like Christmas without coming to our house. They stayed all day and I fed them 3 meals that day, I think they finally left around 9 that night.

The following year, we all took a family vacation to Arizona to see our Daughter. It was the best Christmas ever. My MIL is still "ticked" (her favorite word, since she had the worst Christmas ever that year. Of course she did, she had to go to her own daughters house, who doesn't cook either.

This sounds like my DH's Dad and Step Mom. Their idea of having a Christmas gathering was to bring out the fine china, and then set sliced sandwich ham and cheese on platters to serve. She did not cook and would not let anyone except my FIL even turn on the stove. We hosted Christmas dinner at our place a few times, and then one year FIL who had a local radio show got free dinner for all of us at a local barbecue place for free adverting for the restaurant. My former SIL had a field day with that dinner. lol

Luckily for us we've always had Christmas and Thanksgiving Day with my family. (Except for the disney trip in 2004.) lol
My Step MIL would only go to her rich doctor son's house for Christmas day. They could not wait to shove my DH and my BIL out of the house so they didn't have to do Christmas day with them anymore.