One year, we decided to pass the new year eve in an uncle’s house at some god forsaken hole with our dog. After a neverending trip during wich our dog farted in the car, we finally arrive. The said uncle was a radical ecologist, wich is not a problem per se, except when his only conversation subject is about the ecological collapse, not the ideal subject for a good atmosphere, with in addition to that my sister’s BF, who was with us, doing his Mr. know-it-all show. Then we went to sleep, and i realize that i forgot my earplugs. No luck, everyone in my family was snoring very loudly, including the dog. Result: i didn’t sleep at all and looked pretty much like a zombie the next morning.

  • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    My worst Christmas was walking out of a vets office with an empty cat carrier after Picatso lost a long fight with feline lekuma. I was maybe 10-11, and I remember when my mom and I got into the car just bawling our eyes out.

  • tias@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 day ago

    One year the entire family got a stomach flu over the Christmas holidays. The kids were around 3-6 years old and didn’t know to throw up in a bucket in the night; they just vomited all over the bedsheets each time. We nearly ran out of sheets and had to load the washing machine in the middle of the night to keep up, while taking breaks to puke and shit. My diarrhea was so bad that my blood pressure dropped while sitting on the toilet, so immediately after dropping a load I had to lie down on the floor to avoid passing out, only to pull myself up seconds later to puke in the (now diarrhea-filled) toilet bowl. Meanwhile I hear the kids crying and puking outside and my then wife being pissed that I’m not helping.

  • Elaine@lemm.ee
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    9 days ago

    Probably the one where my dad died two days before Xmas. The upside was being last minute invited into my extended family’s celebrations. After spending two days in hospitals, in shock and mourning walking into a warm, cheery home with food and love will always be a cherished memory in what was otherwise the worst episode of my life.

  • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 days ago

    My grandfather would regularly mess up managing his diabetes nearly every Christmas we spent with him and end up in a diabetic rage. I honestly couldn’t recount any single one of his diabetic rages because they’ve all kind of congealed together in my head over time.

    Three parts that stand out though:

    • One of the rages was set off because he couldn’t find the pen he had been using to track his blood sugar levels (he liked to use one pen from new to dried out) so he had to use a new one.
    • One of them, my father had to step between my grandfather and my mother and stare my grandfather down because my grandfather was fixing to beat my mother.
    • One of them, someone in the family called the police on my grandfather because of his shit.

    Those may have been all the same incident, but I remember the rages happening on more than one Christmas.


    It’s hard to square that shit with all the good memories I had with him. I’ve learned over the years that he was a shit father before he had grandkids too. But he was (excepting the diabetic rages) a good grandfather to me and my cousins.

    Life can be weird like that.

  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I was a kid, I wanna say fifth grade? Anyway, I had to wake up at the crack of dawn to drive to my dad’s mom’s house. I hated both that woman and the house. We made it there around ten or so. Then my dad excused himself, like, a hour after we arrived, leaving my mom and me with his mom, who hated us both in equal measure for ruining her son’s life.

    He didn’t come back until well past midnight.

    I had fallen asleep in the couch and woke up to the fight in the living room. My mother was devastated, and hurt that he left us (he was our ride home), and that it was for drugs or whatever hood shit he was up to. Even after we packed up in the car, he made a pit stop to pick up some drugs for the road and my mother was sobbing in the car. I was trying to comfort but I made it worse, so I just held her hand from the back seat.

    They screamed and fought in the car for nearly an hour. I was terrified he was going to pull us into traffic because he was getting so angry. We ended up pulling over and my mom sobbed in the gas station parking lot, screaming at him to just give a fuck. He walked off to smoke and I was able to calm my my down because she could see I was freaking out and she loved me more than she hated him and calmed herself down in my behalf.

    The ride home was silent. We got home and it was nearly dawn. My mom made me a snack and then sent me to bed. I didn’t fall asleep for a few hours because I was worried he would do something to my mom. When I was sure he was out, I went to sleep.

    Highlight: They got me an Enya CD (don’t judge me) so the initial ride there was actually quite nice. My mom was actually very excited that morning. She was excited to have a family Christmas.

  • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee
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    9 days ago

    My toddler had a respiratory issue several days before Christmas. Hospitalized for a few days. Released a few days before Christmas. We got home. Pipes froze that very day, for several days. So no water in the house. We were supposed to travel, but due to the hospital and weather were stuck home, so we had to scramble to get a few Xmas things together for the kids. Luckily midway through Xmas, the pipes finally thawed - Christmas miracle, we could shower.

  • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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    9 days ago

    I’m predicting the upcoming Christmas is going to be, since it’s the first one I’m going to be in without access to a single loved one.

  • ghost_towels@sh.itjust.works
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    9 days ago

    Last year. We all got Covid when we were doing our shopping the week before and basically cancelled Xmas. Luckily we didn’t have lots of family or friends visiting but the three of us spent the whole time on various couches and beds either in a daze of fever or lethargy. I was the last to go down (and thankfully was the least hit) so managed to get the tree decorated and presents wrapped before the couch became my home. We managed to open presents on Boxing Day, for a hour, and then back to bed. The prime rib roast got chucked in the freezer, I honestly don’t remember what we ate during that time. It took the two weeks we had off to recover so the whole holiday was a bust.

    This year we will be wearing masks EVERYWHERE we go next week.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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    9 days ago

    Not even that bad, but the first new years eve, where my parents let my oldest brother drink all he wanted, kind of as a “you’ll regret that” type of lesson in not always going hog wild on drinking. The part that sucked was I got trapped in the bathroom because he threw up all over the whole entire floor pretty much.

    • kamiheku@sopuli.xyz
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      9 days ago

      Wait, did I get this right – you were in the bathroom with him and he blocked you from exiting by essentially starting a game of “the floor is vomit”?

      • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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        9 days ago

        Pretty much

        I was using the toilet and he came in for some reason or another and just starting throwing up from all the alcohol. I don’t remember much of it since it’s been I think a little over a decade, but I was absolutely trapped because I didn’t wanna be stepping in throw up.

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    This was many years ago. Went to the GFs parents. They were Chinese, so we went to a legit Chinese restaurant to celebrate. I don’t recall there being any gifts.

    They spoke English but didn’t speak a word of it while I was there for 3 days.

  • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    9 days ago

    I don’t really have strong memories of Christmas, I get the impression from my family that I tended to be less depressive at that time of year.

    CW: suicide

    Well, aside from that time I snuck off from a party and tried to kill myself in the woods, but I was doing that a lot that year so I’m not sure that counts as a Christmas specific thing.