When you're a kid, Christmas is magical. The lights, the stories, the gifts, the gatherings. Then, when you get a bit older, you realize that there's a central theme every holiday season, and that is: unforgettable drama. From near-disasters prevented by a kind stranger to hot mess cousins to heartwarming gifts, there's a reason that this is the most memorable time of the year. Grab a bowl of popcorn (or a tin of Christmas cookies) for these real-life jaw-dropping holiday tales.
1. Bringing Down the House
What ruined my Christmas this year was when my cousins got a mini bouncy castle, only for disaster to strike. The entire thing popped—while there were, like, ten screaming children inside of it, all under eight years old. When it happened, the amount of crying and shrieking almost broke my eardrums in half. Traumatized children do not make for a happy holiday.
2. What Time Is It? Time To Cry
My grandfather developed Alzheimer's when I was young. I mostly knew him as this very confused old man who thought he was still living in WWII. When I visited him, he didn't know who the heck I was. He passed on when I was 10 years old. But when I was 18, I received this beautiful silver watch with my birthdate and initials engraved on it. When I asked my parents who it was from, they told me a heartbreaking story.
They said that, a few hours after I was born, my grandfather went out and bought it for me. He was not a rich man and spent about a month's wages on it. My parents also passed along a handwritten letter from him, outlining his thoughts and feelings on the day of my birth. It was a wonderful, precious thing to get a sense of the real man my grandfather was before the disease took him over. And to read by his own hand that he loved me.
That watch is my favorite thing that I own.
3. Snatch
It was Christmas morning and we’re all sitting around the tree with my family and girlfriend at the time. We are all opening presents and I open one from my girlfriend. I unwrap the box and inside I find a flat-billed baseball hat. Strange—I neither wear hats, nor give a hoot about the team whose logo was plastered on the front, let alone the sport.
So, I pull it out and hold it up so everyone [but mainly my girfriend] could see. All the adults give a quizzical look. Even my little sister makes a "huh?" face. So I say something like, "Uh thanks, hon." Her face drains of color. She says “Oops, that was for someone else, I must have brought it inside by accident.” She then snatches it out of my hands.
I hold out the card that was attached to the wrapping: "Hey baby, love ya lots. Merry Christmas." She was cheating. There were tickets to some big upcoming game tucked inside the hat too. Needless to say, it was awfully embarrassing to have to essentially break up with your girlfriend in front of your family on Christmas morning via what you thought was a gift.
4. Worth The Drive
I had worked a shift at the hospital on Christmas Eve and was trying my best to get to my family’s house about two hours away before dinner. My brakes on my car just were not working right. It was snowing like crazy, and I was losing hope. I saw the mechanic was still open, so I drove in and told him what was going on.
Half an hour or so later, he came out and told me what was wrong. And that wasn't all: He had already gone ahead and fixed it. I asked him what I owed him for the work. He told me to just get home to my family safe and have a merry Christmas. I felt like I was in a Hallmark movie. It is now the only place I will take my car.
5. Sudden Tragedy
Last Christmas Eve, my mom passed on at the age of 71. Then, on New Year’s Eve, my dad had a heart attack and lost his life at the age of 78. Needless to say, this completely ruined the entire holiday season for me and my family. To make matters even worse, our entire family got sick from the catering that the church provided at the funeral service. It seems a bit comical now, but it wasn’t the least bit funny at the time…
6. Love Is A Special Medicine
We were hosting a young lady my wife worked with, as well as her boyfriend. Halfway through dinner and somehow the discussion got to how her and her brother "once got super trashed on Robitussin, and next thing you know we... Uh... Yeah, that was really a weird time." Everyone just got really quiet as we were trying to decide how to fill that one in and where to go with it.
7. The Butterfly Effect
For Christmas two years ago, my mother had sent my grandmother a butterfly necklace. Unfortunately, my grandmother passed on Christmas Eve, so she was never able to open the gift. My aunt sent the necklace back and my mother kept it in her jewelry box. This year, when I was getting ready for graduation, my mother told me to turn around.
When I looked in the mirror, it was my grandmother's butterfly necklace. One of my grandmother's final wishes was to see me graduate college, and this was my mother's way of making sure she could see it. I cried. A lot.
8. Not Exactly the Ideal Christmas Dinner
What ruined my Christmas this year was when my mother-in-law tried to feed my eldest child a mango, a thing that she has been allergic to for the past 11 years. My eldest said, “What are you doing??!! Grandma, I’m allergic to those!” Grandma replied “It’ll be okay. After all, it’s Christmas!” Um, no. Last time I checked, food allergies don’t take Christmas off, you idiot…
9. When The Worst is Actually the Best
Growing up I used to hate that my uncle would get all of us kids the same $1 pair of cheap one size fits all gloves. I clearly remember thinking how I'd really rather just have the dollar to spend, and yet he never failed to get them for us. It was always the last gift my cousins and I would open...Gee, thanks, Uncle Craig.
Craig was developmentally disabled, and although he was well into his 30s when we were kids he would come out into the street and play baseball with us, he'd ride bikes across town with us, buy us beer and Playboy mags when we were older... And yet every year, these darn gloves even when we were grown adults and his health was fading, and we all moved away.
This will be Christmas number three without Uncle Craig, and as I look back at it now it makes more sense. He was living in a shack that he was renting for $350 a month there were 15 nieces and nephews... We knew he couldn't afford to get us any toys or anything, but he wanted us to have something more meaningful than a dollar bill, and Christmas was his favorite holiday.
RIP Uncle Craig. I wish there was a poorly wrapped pair of gloves under my tree this year.
10. Under-wear the Mistletoe
Every year, my family does a Secret Santa on Christmas. When I was about ten, my aunt had to buy me a gift. So Christmas morning, I open my gift up and find a Christmas sweater along with a pair of poop-stained women’s underwear. Apparently, my aunt was doing laundry and wrapping gifts at the same time and got the two mixed up.
11. Cat Got My Tongue
I had been dating this girl for a few months and we were serious enough that I was buying her Christmas presents. I found something that had a connection to a funny event involving her cat and my cat. I made the present to be from my cat. I thought I was being cute but instead, she got angry that my cat got her a present and I didn't.
I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. To make matters worse, her parents backed her up later at a family dinner. It was incredibly awkward.
12. Up In Flames
My family and several other families in my Church would sometime after Christmas, gather all the Christmas trees and have a Christmas Tree Bonfire on the beach. It was perhaps the best thing ever. Until one year, when disaster struck. My Church was busted for throwing three trees onto the fire at once, causing a huge magnificent 20-foot flame to erupt. The Fire Department was called. Our tradition pretty much ended after that.
13. Love Waits for No One
My mother-in-law passed on one September after [knowing she had] cancer for less than a year. My parents invited her widower husband to have Christmas with us. He spent much of the time giddily talking about dating apps. My husband was not amused.
14. Poster Child
When I was younger, I was obsessed with the Spice Girls. One year, my grandma gave me a poster of them for Christmas. My parents are divorced and, as a result, we moved a lot with my mom over the years. No matter how many bedrooms I had or what city we were living in at any given moment, I always had my Spice Girls poster hanging on my door at all times.
One of the last times that we moved, my mom was packing up my room. While she was trying to get my poster down, she accidentally ripped it. Now the rip was not anything terrible, but she pretty much assumed that it was garbage at that point and threw it away without my knowing. When I found out, I just cried and cried for days.
Because so many years had already passed since the poster had first been purchased, I couldn't ever find the same one for sale on eBay, Amazon, or anywhere else. Then, one day, I happened to casually mention the story to my mother-in-law. Two years ago, she somehow managed to find a copy of the poster and surprised me with it as a Christmas gift.
It was the first time in my entire life that I had ever cried over getting a present. I still need to get around to properly framing it someday, but it has been one of my prized possessions ever since.
15. Showing Them All Who’s Boss
What ruined Christmas this year? Me! I was invited to a lovely dinner by my boss with his extended family. Even though I was extremely nervous beforehand, everything went amazingly well—until I messed it all up with one horrific mistake. For a little bit of background, I had just been promoted to manager for my boss's company within the last month. The business is very small (only five employees).
When he learned that I had been planning to spend Christmas alone, he decided that he wasn’t going to let that happen and graciously invited me over. He even insisted on driving me home at the end of the night. But here's the thing. Before getting the job, I'd lived in a large city and haven’t needed to be in a car for a very long time. In fact, this ride home was probably the first time I had ridden in one in about a year. So, as I was in my boss's beautiful car, I started to feel ill. That intense, nauseating kind of motion sickness.
I tried to open the window to get some air, but it was safety locked, probably because my boss and his wife had just had a baby. I felt trapped and helpless. I tried to keep myself from puking but at a certain point, there was no use. I puked all over the inside of my boss's car. After it happened, I was extremely embarrassed. I offered to have the car cleaned for him, and his reply shocked me.
He just said “No worries, I’m more just worried about if you are okay.” I seriously lucked out with best boss ever!
16. Christmas Breakfast
My parents got me a bag of cereal for Christmas. That probably sounds sad or somewhat pathetic, but I'll explain why. My parents aren't good at giving gifts, in general, and there usually isn't much thought put into it. I'll get generic hoodies from Walmart, basic shirt or boxer packs, movies I'm not interested in, etc.
But! One year, they gave me this giant bag of cereal of a brand that I used to eat every day back home, and that I had trouble finding in Chicago where I had since moved. It brought back a lot of sentimental feelings since I had been missing home. Plus, it was thoughtful since I had been telling my parents it was hard to find. To this day, that's my favorite Christmas present I've gotten.
17. Traditional Tree Eel
One year there was a TV program on before Christmas, something like "10 Worst Christmas Disasters." One feature on the program was about a family who bought a Christmas tree that had been imported from Norway, and it had a snake wrapped around the trunk which went unnoticed until Christmas morning, scaring the family, with the mother on the TV screaming about a "Christmas tree eel."
Now, this terrified my sister (six or seven at the time), so we decided to wrap a toy snake around the bottom of our tree. When she went to get her presents right from the back, she saw this snake and ran out in tears. Hilarious. Now every year we wrap our own Christmas tree eel around our tree and have done so for about 14 years!
18. Caught Something on the Way Here
My aunt decided to announce she got chlamydia as we started to eat and my grandmother told her getting stuffed by random people is “for turkeys.” I laughed really hard.
19. It’s The Thought That Counts
I don't even know if this is really the "best" Christmas present that I ever received, but it is without a doubt one of the ones that I'll never forget. My dad and I have always had an extremely distant relationship. He was never an affectionate or emotional person. All birthdays, celebrations, and events that we were a part of would always go to my mom to organize.
It was just simply not an area that he was ever involved in. He didn't give gifts or engage in theatrics of any kind and, at the end of the day, I can't blame him. He is an immigrant, lived a very hard life, and, culturally speaking, this is just how it always was for him. One Christmas, when I was probably something like 10 or 11 years old, I noticed that among all the other presents that I had from my mom and other family members, there was an actual present from my dad addressed to me. I opened it up.
The present was a picture book for children. It was definitely not a baby book by any means, but it was clearly something aimed for ages seven to eight, which was way too young for me. It was just shocking to me that he would, first of all, suddenly care about getting me a present to begin with and, second of all, choose this child's book out of all the things that he could have gotten me.
Nevertheless, even though I was just 10 years old, I realized that my dad genuinely had no idea what to get me, but wanted to get me SOMETHING. He only knew that I loved to read and that I read books all day long, so he got me a book even though he had no knowledge of what reading level I was at. Maybe that is not a very good story or makes him seem bad, but it will always stick with me as one of the most touching things that I ever experienced.
He is such a non-sentimental and stoic person. I can't even imagine him going to a bookstore, choosing this very cutesy, colorful book with me in mind, and actually giving it to me as a gift. But he did. He wanted to give me a Christmas present in his own awkward way, and he tried his best. That meant more to me than all the toys in the world.
20. A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
My best gift was a photograph that I myself had taken. My mom passed on a year ago of a very aggressive form of leukemia. She was diagnosed on a Tuesday and passed 11 days later. During those 11 days, we opted for in-home hospice. While she was still lucid and awake, she met with her grandchildren and presented each of them with a baby quilt that she had painstakingly hand-made for their children (her great-grandchildren), if and when they were to have any.
"I wanted to present these to you when you actually have your children," she said, "but that's not going to happen, so I'm giving these to you now." I, in the background, quietly observing—and trying not to fall apart—snapped a photo of the scene—my mom in her robe with her grandchildren (all in their early/mid-20s) sitting around her, each with a beautiful quilt over their laps—and sent it to a friend of mine to kind of share in the pain and grief.
Six months later, for Christmas, my friend had that photo printed out and put into a simple frame, wrapped it, and gave it to me as a present. I hadn't given the photo much thought and had almost forgotten about it. So unwrapping it and seeing Mom there again hit me like a freight train.
21. Candy Cane And Abel
I had a pastor that insisted we call candy canes "Jesus sticks" because Christmas is all about Jesus. Well, when I was seven, I accidentally referred to the Holy Jesus Stick as a candy cane in his presence. I swear to you, he rushed over to my dad to tell on me and carry on about how offensive it is to see the world trying to remove Christ from Christmas.
My dad asked him if he was serious and then told him to grow up. Then, to rub it in, my dad took it one hilarious step further. He dressed up as Santa a couple of weeks later, and came into the church yelling "Ho! Ho! Ho! Candy canes for everyone!" and passed the satanic candy canes to all the little children during the service. The pettiness runs deep in our family.
22. Oh You Beautiful Doll
I got a Barbie doll with a pink dress and brown hair. Cute gift, right? Wrong. The kicker was that my father had just given my 15-year-old stepbrother a BMW the day before. I was grounded for two months because I told my dad I didn’t want the doll unless it was capable of pooping out car keys. No regrets.
23. Party Hardy, Grandma
My mother and grandmother had plans to go to a restaurant last year, but my sister convinced them to go somewhere else at the last minute. Of course, this means they had no reservations, but my sister is convinced that it'll be fine and they might just have to wait a few minutes for a table. I live in another state, so I get to experience all of this from a distance.
They end up sitting at the bar while waiting for a table, having a few drinks and appetizers. After the second round of martinis my mother looks over and my grandmother is leaning back in her chair, completely limp and unresponsive. Everyone starts freaking out, the paramedics are called, and grandma is rushed to the ER.
I'm 1,200 miles away when my mother calls to tell me what happened. At this point, grandma is at the ER, still unresponsive, with crazy low blood pressure and high heart rate. I'm ready to book plane tickets and rush to the airport when my mom calls back and says: "Don't worry, everything's OK, your grandmother just got drunk."
Her blood test came back completely normal except for a BAC of 0.24 (3x the limit). She was awake now, so I got to talk to her and she was crying "I'm so sorry, I've ruined Thanksgiving." I assured her that she hasn't ruined Thanksgiving and that everyone is just happy she's OK. So my grandma is 90 years old, about 4'8" tall, and 100lbs. She hadn't eaten anything all day because she knew they were having a big dinner. She also ordered another martini while no one was looking, so the second martini was actually her third.
This turned into the perfect storm of a really wasted grandma. In other words, Grandma got run over by a martini.
24. Hello Kitty
When my aunt passed on, my uncle gave me the kitty slippers that I had bought her four Christmases earlier. She wore them every single day until she passed. You can still see where her sewing repairs were made. They mean so much to me. She loved those slippers so much.
Shutterstock
25. Sounds Like You Have Some Nutty People in Your Family!
What ruined Christmas for me this year was everyone weirdly forgetting that I was allergic to nuts and, as a result, putting nuts in all of our food. Spent Christmas in the ICU. Thanks, fam!
26. Gotcha!
The best gift I ever received was seeing the expression on my parents’ faces when I enlisted in the Marines and surprised them by being home for Christmas after I had them convinced that I definitely wasn’t going to be able to.
27. Spread The Love
My family has a Christmas tradition that I love. Assuming it's reasonably cold, we make a large pot of soup, some cornbread, and a bunch of Christmas cookies, and then Christmas Eve or Christmas Day we go "homeless hunting" and pass out hot soup, cornbread, and cookies. Sometimes we get gloves and socks to pass out as well.
The soup will heat up their hands as they hold it, even in an insulated coffee cup with a lid. Typically, it's something like chili or pinto beans and ham/bacon, so it's "soul food" that is hard to get without a kitchen (but it's cheap to prepare, which is nice). Really makes it seem like Christmas.
28. I’ve Got the Power
One Christmas, my ex-wife’s grandmother gave me a little electronic slot machine game that she bought at a yard sale. It still had the handwritten $1 price tag on it. When she handed it to me, her words were “Merry Christmas Ken, you’ll need to buy your own batteries for this.” My name is not Ken. And I never bought batteries for that game.
29. This Dog’s Got Great Comedic Timing
My grandmother ran out of counter space and stuff was sorta burning like crazy on top of the stove. She took out the turkey on the tray, looked around, and put it on the ground for like three seconds. She intended for it to be there for three seconds. Her dog, Rosco, had been following her all day. Earlier she tossed him a turkey giblet, and I guess that didn't sit well with him.
He defecated all over my grandma's leg, floor, and freshly-cooked turkey in one explosive two-second blast of fiery diarrhea.
30. Brotherly Love
What ruined Christmas for me this year was my brother picking a fight with my sister over who won WWII. He was wrong, and she refused to let him get away with it. We left when he started yelling at her and calling her an idiot. Oh, but that's not all. My sister has a degree in political science and teaches world history.
31. Long Term and Short Term Wins
In my junior year of high school, the folks squirreled every penny to purchase an investment property. They clearly communicated that because of this, there wasn’t going to be much, if anything, under the tree. Flash cut to Christmas Eve and the doorbell rings about 9 PM. I answer it to find a brand new powder blue Univega 10-speed bike.
It still tears me up as they found a way to make this possible!!! I’m 45 years old now and thanks to my business-savvy parents, my family has a solid financial portfolio. Best parents ever.
32. Dinner Rolls Never Die
After Thanksgiving dinner, my sister and I (both adults now) will engage in a friendly fight with leftover dinner rolls (my mom always burns a few). We'll throw them at each other outside, and hide them in each other's cars. This year I got her pretty good by hiding one between the gas cap and the gas tank lid. But the tradition doesn't end there.
The rolls then re-surface as rock-hard Christmas gifts a month later. Rolls from past years have been re-gifted, so you open up a package that contains a mummified roll with "2011" written in sharpie on it.
33. This Gift Choked
I got a literal lump of coal from my best friend in college. It was a “gag gift.” He said it was the “gift of warmth.” Meanwhile, I bought him an MP3 player.
34. A Grate Conflict
My uncle and grandfather don’t have a good relationship but were tolerating each other because it was Christmas. My uncle was cooking lasagna and my grandfather decided to help, so he grated the cheese. He did this in another room, because the kitchen was full of other people cooking, we have a big Thanksgiving with maybe 15 or 20 who love to eat.
I had brought in the cheese and everything was going fine. Flash forward to dinner time, the food is coming out and, as tradition dictates, we always start with lasagna. My grandfather made some joke like," I know you hate me, but at least I'm grate," and stuff hit the fan. My uncle literally went into a rage and was yelling at everyone because we didn't tell him he was using "tainted" cheese. Then said "forget it" and proceeded to flip the table ALL the food was on.
Then my grandfather called him outside to settle the score, which resulted in two grown men fist fighting in the backyard, culminating with my grandad getting thrown into the pond we lived off of, and slicing his leg on a jagged rock that he landed on. The rest of us ordered Chinese food and kicked my uncle out. My grandfather refused the hospital because he had a little too much "holiday joy" in him at the time.
Surprising my uncle hasn't come to the holidays in years now...
35. Where Did I Come From?
I'm adopted, and my birth mom didn’t remember my birth father well enough to include any info on his heritage or anything like that. As a result, I've always been curious about where the other half of me originates from. My best friend has always known about this interest of mine. So, one year, he and his girlfriend got me a 23 and Me Christmas present so that I could finally find out more about myself and where I come from.
It was so thoughtful and awesome!
36. To Save My Uncle, I Have to Become My Uncle
Our uncle recently abandoned his children as a result of his substance misuse. It was bad, but my sister's response was just plain crazy. She got extremely drunk and started telling us all about how she wanted to get high with our uncle in a “controlled environment” to try and help him come back to reality—whatever that means.
She told us that she isn’t going to “become an addict,” but that she “just wants to know what it’s like” so that she can try to help him. It’s been an emotional couple of hours trying to get the fact that this WOULDN’T WORK through her thick skull.
37. Family Entertainment
This was the first time I ever cried over a Christmas gift. It was my first Christmas as a mom and my first without my mom, and she was the biggest Christmas lover ever. I opened a gift from my aunt, one of my mom’s sisters, and it was a DVD collection of all the classic Claymation Christmas movies (Rudolph, Frosty, etc.). I cried. I watch them every year with my kiddo.
38. On The Hour Every Hour
I love this tradition but most people find it really strange. On Christmas morning we aren't allowed all our presents but rather we get one present every hour. It's brilliant; the anticipation lasts all day and you get to really enjoy each present . It's also scary because as a kid you knew you were bound to whatever gift you picked for an hour so it was often a heartwrenching decision!
39. Rest In Peace
My worst present was a kitten. I was about to make a cross-country move with my then-girlfriend, and her mother gave us a kitten without any discussion beforehand. It passed on the next day from a parasite or something. We rushed it to a vet but it was too late. So we got to pay for a vet visit and a cremation. Thanks, mom.
40. You’re Breaking My Something
Here's what happened. Grandmother didn't like my dad very much, and she picked a fight with him, so he decided that he was going home. When grandmother realized that my stepmom (her daughter) was going to take dad's side and go home too, she yelled a lot and then, as a last-ditch effort, dramatically clutched her chest and collapsed very carefully—it was outside, and I guess she didn't want to bump her head or muss her clothes).
Dad offered to call 9-1-1, grandfather said it wasn't necessary, and when grandmother realized no one was taking her seriously she opened her eyes, allowed grandfather to help her up, and went inside with him while fake sobbing. Normally she was quite nice, but she had her moments and really wasn't happy that her daughter had grown up and had a life. Holidays usually brought out the worst in her. Which was weird because she loved cooking and celebrating.
41. Money (That’s What I Want)
I went through some really rough times after I got out of the army. I was totally broke. I got a job offer 2,000 miles away from home but I wasn’t sure I could take it—until a miracle happened. For Christmas, every single member of my family gave me cash on loan to make it work. The money they gave me added up to over $5,000.
Due to the nature of the job, I had everyone paid back within the first month. I love my family.
42. A Bad Year to Be a Gift
Two things ruined our Christmas this year. First, my bratty five-year-old kid had to go and peek at all his presents three days before Christmas. Then, almost like karma getting back at my kid, our family dog peed on the Christmas tree, the tree skirt, and, you guessed it, all over everyone’s gifts too. Merry Christmas to me!
43. Not So Fast, Big Debbie!
Ten years ago, I was OBSESSED with Little Debbie Christmas cakes. Whenever my mom would buy them, I would eat a box by myself and she would have to hide them. We made jokes about it and she called me "Big Debbie." Anyway...I REALLY wanted a cell phone for Christmas. I had been begging for one all year because I was the last of my friends without one and my older sister had gotten one for her birthday the year before. That was the only thing I wanted, I told my parents.
It's Christmas Day and my family is opening presents. Before unwrapping, I inspected each of mine to see which was most shaped like a box that would hold a cell phone. After doing size and shake tests, only one wrapped box made sense. I ripped the paper off and I was horrified. I'm laughing just remembering how my face totally sunk.
It was a box of Little Debbie cakes. I pushed it aside to open the other few gifts from my family and when I was done, I sat there frowning—being the spoiled teen that I was—watching everyone else open presents. "Emily, can you pass me one of the Little Debbie cakes?" my mom asked me. I was about to toss the box to her when she yelled, "Don't you dare throw the darn box at me. Open it and pass me one like a civilized human being."
I rolled my eyes and pulled the tape off the box to open it. Inside, there were no cakes. There was nothing but another box--for an LG flip phone. I may have cried. My mom was laughing hysterically.
44. God Bless The '90s
When I was born my mom had been on this show called Supermarket Sweep (bad Canadian game show), however, no one knew about this until one year my older brother spends six months taping reruns of the show trying to find it. He found it and then showed me. Since this was the early 90s you can bet my mom was in a matching purple sweat pantsuit with permed hair.
Anyway, he found the tape and decided it would be perfect to surprise my mom with at our big family dinner on Christmas. It was hilarious and we now bring it out every Christmas because we can and it never gets old watching my mom answer questions about groceries.
45. Homework On The Holidays
My first semester of university after moving to Canada from America, my uncle offered to have me over. I spend 12 hours traveling from my university to his place, only for him to put me to work on demolishing the bathroom tiles. Then, he puts me to work on figuring out how many tiles he needs. Then, it's time for me to go home on a 12-hour journey and have a midterm.
I was told we'd be celebrating Christmas. I didn't even get a nice dinner out of it.
46. You Are My Sunshine
When I was only seven years old, I spent some time in my local hospital’s Intensive Care Unit battling pneumonia. It was horrible timing because Christmas was that week. The nurses brought in a massive television with a Nintendo GameCube hooked up to it. The only game I played was Mario Sunshine the entire time that I was in the hospital.
I loved that game so much! It was so colorful and just super exciting to play since I didn’t even know that the game existed before that week. It is still my favorite Mario game ever made, but I’m biased, of course. Anyway, I thankfully made it out of the hospital just a few days before Christmas, and on Christmas Day we went to my auntie’s house.
We started opening gifts and they got me my very own GameCube system, but it didn’t appear as though I had any games for it at first. It turned out they tricked me and hid the other gift that they bought at the bottom of the box. It was Mario Sunshine. I’ve never ever had tears of joy in my entire life, but when I opened these gifts I just couldn’t help but cry.
I was so surprised and so happy! I’ve still never again experienced the same emotions that I felt on that day in all the years since, and I don’t think I ever will.
47. Dropping Like Flies
Christmas was ruined this year when everyone in my family caught the flu. And not the dignified flu. The fighting-over-who-gets-to-use-the-bathroom-first kind of flu. No one was spared and the carnage was horrific. One by one, each and every one of my family members fell ill until all of our Christmas plans crumbled like a bunch of gingerbread cookies.
48. The Old Switcharoo
My sister's boyfriend basically Secret Santa catfished me using the anonymous message feature on the website the family uses to organize our gift exchange. He asked really ridiculous questions that led me to believe that he was one of my relatives who always gives terrible presents. His messages for weeks leading up to Christmas made me believe he was going to buy me all this ugly and random stuff instead of anything remotely resembling what I liked.
On Christmas Day, I was perfectly prepared to pretend to love whatever hideous present my relative had picked out for me, but instead, I unwrapped the exact cookbook I had been dying for and the exact brand of nail polish I loved. I still cherish those items, but the real surprise was that it had been him pranking me the whole time! I had basically already thought of him as my brother at that point, but this sealed the deal.
49. Nutty For Narnia
Every year, my mum and dad turn their bedroom into Narnia. You open their door to be met with fur coats and a load of fake snow chucked at you by one of my cousins. An overworked smoke machine has filled the room with its magical mist, so the only thing you can see is a half-sized street lamp glowing in the corner. As the smoke clears you see Mr. Tumnus (my dad) who greets you with some (recorded) flute music.
After this, the white witch (my mum) invites you onto her sleigh (her bed), and offers you some Turkish Delight. That's when things get really weird. When all of the siblings are on the bed, the sleigh-ride begins (they've set up a projector which shows a first-person view of a mountain ride), while they and my cousins (who are dressed as animals) run up and down the sides of the bed throwing fake snow at you and holding bits of tree to make it look, in my mother's words, "more realistic." Then we all get a drink or four and open our presents.
I should point out that this tradition is only three years old, and it's gotten more elaborate every year. I should also point out that the youngest of the children in my family is 25. Also, we have Christmas on the 27th so everyone can go to their partners’ families on the 25th.
50. It’s Not What It Looks Like
I got a gift card to a lingerie store from my grandma. The messed up part wasn't the gift itself, but the fact that she made my poor 19-year-old brother go in and buy it. The conversation went something like this. Cashier: "Shopping for your girlfriend?" Brother: "No, for my sister...well, actually my grandma..." Awkward silence…
51. See Through Your Excuses
Spent all day cleaning the house for the guests. Made sure the windows were incredibly clean and clear. My little brother and cousin were chasing each other outside. Brother comes running through the door, which was clearly open because you couldn’t see the gla…uh oh. He slammed through the plate glass window and got a massive gash on his face and leg. 80 stitches, plastic surgery, and a multiple-day hospital stay.
Don’t clean your windows too well.
52. Making the Most of What You Have
My family went pretty broke right before Christmas one year. My mom was laid off and her last day was going to be December 31. My dad had already been on food stamps for a few years by that point. I myself was living paycheck to paycheck, and my sisters were both either in high school or living in dorms at college. Things were pretty sparse for us.
That year, one of my sisters got me a bar of face soap (which I desperately needed) as a Christmas present. My other sister got me a six-pack of lip balm from Costco. My mom got me the pajama pants that I happen to be wearing right now, and my dad got me a gift card went towards a nice dinner for my girlfriend and me so that we didn’t have to feel as poor as we really were.
As simple as each of those items was, they all meant the world to me.
53. Not Exactly Model Behavior
I got my boyfriend a model kit for Christmas. I thought he'd love it, but I was so wrong. He called it "cheap" and said it probably wasn’t even worth his time to assemble. Then, later on, he told me not to let it discourage me from buying him more presents in the future. I felt very unappreciated and the whole thing ruined Christmas for me.
Pikist
54. A For Effort
In the late 70s, all the cool kids wore Ocean Pacific brand clothing. We were kinda poor, so my mom and grandma made most of our clothes. One year, my grandma made me pants and hand-stitched the letters O and P on the pockets. Looked nothing like the real thing. I had to wear them anyway.
55. Slow Cooker
My mother had bought a new stove and had me, my brother, his very pregnant girlfriend, and a few others over for Christmas. About a half-hour to an hour before the turkey was supposed to be done, Mom checked on it. It was still raw. She had hit the wrong button when programming the new stove and accidentally shut it off.
Luckily, we learned you can in fact microwave a turkey because, judging from the look my brother’s pregnant girlfriend gave, she was ready to eat my mom. The turkey was a bit dry but otherwise? Not bad.
56. Secret Santa
Christmas 2003, I received a toy kitchen from "Santa Claus,” but there was a heartbreaking story behind it. Four weeks earlier, my mom had passed on after being ill for almost a year. I eventually learned that this present had been from her; it was the last thing she ever bought before her passing. I guess my dad didn’t have the heart to tell me so at the time.
That toy means more to me than just about anything else I can imagine.
57. It’s All About the Attitude
Last Christmas, my brother got a super bad migraine after lunch and endured a few decent rounds of throwing up in the bathroom. When he eventually came back out, he put both of his arms up in the air and proclaimed “Whoop whoop! I’m putting on zero calories this Christmas!” He was promptly told to shut up and went back to sleep for the rest of the day.
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58. I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Mine was a whole crazy story, but the best gift I ever received was $12 cash from an old Australian couple to get me home to my family for Christmas. The bus company wouldn't split my 25$ ticket between the $13 I had in cash and the $19 I had on my debit card, and the couple was behind me in line. I never even got their names. Not that they are ever going to read this, but thank you.
59. Hail Santa
While I was growing up, my dad and I would hide a potato wedge somewhere on the Christmas tree every year to see how long it would take for my mother to notice. Our record was like nine days. Also, this isn't really a tradition, but my mother has these wooden letters that spell out "SANTA" that she puts out on display during the Christmas season.
I have been rearranging them to say "SATAN" for as long as I can remember. She gets angry and changes them back whenever she notices, but I just keep doing it.
60. A Leg Up On All the Other Stories
This wasn't my gift, but it was the most awkward situation ever. A few years ago, my grandma had her legs amputated. Last Christmas, my aunt bought her a pair of socks. It was sooo awful.
61. Do You Think Dinner Will Be Late?
I heard some screaming from outside my apartment. I opened the door and saw this lady running to the dumpster with a turkey still in the pan on fire. She threw it into the dumpster which then caught fire. I called 9-1-1 so the fire department could put it out. That was certainly a Christmas to remember.
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62. He’ll Always Be With You
My favorite gift was just received this Christmas, but I can already tell that it will be the best one I’ll ever get. My little brother passed on about two years ago, and my mom took his old shirts and made a blanket out of them. It’s a very simple gift, but the most meaningful one I’ve ever had.
63. Mother's Little Helper
Is anyone else’s family this dysfunctional? Every year, there is a major argument in my family during the holidays and finally, after 32 years, I was the one who blew up for the first time. To make a long story short, I’m half-Korean and half-white. My mom is Korean. My dad’s side is white. So, we only have my Dad’s side of the family living here in the United States with us.
For years, I have watched time and time again as certain relatives from my dad’s side repeatedly speak down to my mom. They never invite her to things. My brother and I have always been treated like outsiders by these family members. To be frank, I don’t really care how I'm treated by them. Every year, we always bite our tongues and survive the holidays because it’s only 2 or 3 times a year.
My mom even buys gifts every year for them, despite the fact that she never gets anything in return. She never complains. My white grandma is 80 years old now, and she’s the only thing still anchoring us to some of these family members. Three times in one day this Christmas, I watched a family member (aunt) raise her voice to my mom, talk to her as if she doesn’t speak English, and shut her down over simple questions like “Where should I sit?”
I watched my mom quietly recoil and I couldn’t stand to see it again. This aunt does it the most and I finally blew up. I yelled so loud that everyone instantly stopped what they were doing. I told them that enough is enough and that they had better start treating my mom with respect and as an equal in this house. I told them to stop speaking to my mom (who has lived in the US for over 35 years) as if she doesn’t understand English and to stop shutting her down over simple questions. I watched it happen year after year and insisted that I would not allow it to happen anymore.
My aunt stomped away and was so upset that she left the house. As she was walking away, I walked up to her and handed her my mom’s yearly gift to her. I said “For 30 years, I have watched my mom give you a gift every year. I watched her speak to you as an equal with respect. I’ve never once seen you treat her the same way in return.” She didn’t say anything to me in response; but before she walked out the door, she did something that shocked me: she actually apologized to my mom.
Before I left, I apologized to everyone for the outburst and explained why I had been so upset. Everyone was shocked, but once I explained it, they started to get it a bit more. But still, it definitely made things awkward for everyone there. People trickled out of the party early. Now, my poor grandma is already talking about not wanting to host Christmas anymore in the future due to our constant family drama. I feel bad about that, but at the same time, I’ve never felt so proud to stand up for my mom.
After we left, she gave me a very long mom hug. She didn’t say anything and just asked me if I wanted to go out for one of my favorite Korean dishes. That was her way of saying that she was proud of me. It felt good. Plus, Grandma’s 80th birthday is in two months. Now people will definitely think twice before being rude to my mom. Cheers and have a Happy New Year!
64. The Gift of Cleanliness
My boyfriend told me last night that he was bringing a new animal friend home for our dog. This is absolutely something he'd do and I was not happy. Then he got home and he'd actually bought me a Dyson Animal vacuum as an early Christmas present. I was extremely happy. It's AMAZING.
65. Armed and Dangerous
On Christmas Eve, after all the wrapping paper was off, my whole extended family would have a wrapping paper-ball fight. It usually would last until one of my aunts would get hit in the face and become grumpy. Then sometimes my Grandma would laugh and throw another ball at that aunt.
66. Where Does It End?
Every year, we try to disguise our presents in different sized boxes, and try to make it as ridiculous and hilarious to open as is possible. My favorite example was two years ago, what my brothers present to me was (at first) a box that was roughly the size of a printer. Then it was several boxes within a box (all boxes were wrapped of course), and then in the very last box was a deodorant stick.
Then I had to unscrew the deodorant all the way until it popped out, and underneath that was a plastic bag that contained a gift card. Yeah, we waste a lot of wrapping paper, but it's hilarious seeing all of us get frustrated trying to figure out what the present is.
67. The Gift Of A Lesson
My cousin had passed on after a drunk driving accident a few months before, so my mom got me a Breathalyzer keychain as my Christmas gift. I see what my mom was trying to do, but still messed up in my opinion.
68. Fear The Booty
One year, my dad broke my grandparent’s toilet with the power of his bowels. He ended up having to buy them a new toilet—which he broke a year later at Christmas with the same method. If you can tell, my family fears my dad's bowels and we have many more stories about him and toilets.
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69. Everything You Wanted and More
It was the first Christmas after my mom had left us to go be with “the love of her life.” For the first time ever, it was just me and my dad alone at Christmastime, and it had only been a short four months since she had left. We spent it in our little apartment with a small plastic tree that we had both decorated. I didn’t expect much.
I remember that I had wanted a Microsoft sidewinder wheel and pedals. Come Christmas morning, there it was! Beside it was a copy of the video game Need for Speed and a package of Life Savers candies. As soon as I saw that stuff, I suddenly knew that everything was going to be okay. I still have the sidewinder, the game, and the candy package as reminders of our first Christmas alone together.
I got one of those same candy packages a few weeks ago in a care package from him, and it made me tear up. It instantly reminded me about that Christmas and how much he has sacrificed for me as a single father ever since.
70. He Should Probably Get That Checked Out...
What ruined Christmas for me this year was finding out that one of my cousins is in really poor health. I hadn't seen him in a few months, and he has since developed a hernia in his groin. It has grown to the size of a soccer ball and, though he's only 27 years old, he's gotten so sick that he looks and sounds like he's 45. And that's not even the worst part.
For some reason, he refuses to get medical attention for it. He's always struggled with depression and I worry that he's just waiting to pass at this point.
71. Pet Festivities
Christmas Eve, after church service, the family loads up the dog and cat in the car and drives around looking at Christmas lights. We end it with a trip to Tastee Freeze to get a hamburger for the dog and a small vanilla ice cream for the cat. Humans don't get anything.
72. A Very Special Farewell Tour
My mom passed on from cancer this year. She had been Stage 4 for 11 years and passed on at just 55 years old, so pretty young. Last year, Christmas was really emotional for our family, as things had been taking a turn for the worse. For my gift, my mom made me a large shadow box with ticket stubs that she had saved from every single concert we had ever gone to together since I was a little kid.
We were both big fans of music, so she knew that I would love this. There was everything from Mr. Dressup to Pearl Jam and the White Stripes, etc. Not only had she saved these over the years, but she even went online and bought postcards, buttons, and patches from each of the specific tour dates we had attended, to go with the stubs.
The moment I unwrapped it and realized what it was, I burst into tears and cried for a good while. It was a very heavy moment and one of the best gifts that I've ever been given.
73. Thinking Outside the Box
The year the Nintendo 64 came out, it was all that me and my brothers wanted for Christmas. We rented a system from Blockbuster every chance we got and it came in a black carrying case. Fast forward to Christmas morning and one of these very boxes is under the tree. We thought maybe my parents had gotten a used one or something, and we were beyond excited to open that puppy up.
We saw the tag was from our grandparents, who were very anti-video games. Maybe they came around, we thought. Maybe it's a Christmas miracle. We pop open the lid and sitting inside is... a typewriter. An electric typewriter. My grandfather thought we could use it to work on our typing skills. All three of us were devastated.
74. May He Rest in Peace
What ruined Christmas for me this year was that my dad passed just a few days before. His passing was on December 22nd, and we cremated him on December 26th. I spent Christmas Day with his body in the funeral home and set up the memorial program. I spent an hour with him on a bed, “talking” to him, telling him how much I missed him and wishing he would wake up.
75. Kings and Queens For a Night
I come from a very, very poor family. I didn't see my mom a whole lot growing up, but she would normally turn up for birthdays, and I usually spent Christmas Eve with her. Although she and a lot of her hippie friends struggled financially, they all pitched in to make Christmas Eve tons of fun. They always got a lot of high-class foods, and we would all sit around on the 24th, sipping on Drambuie from a big snifter and eating caviar on fancy crackers.
Everyone brought the fanciest dishware they had, and we'd sit in the formal living room of one of my mom's friends' who had inherited a house from her once-wealthy grandparents. All the settings were mismatched silver trays and China serving bowls, but heck, did we ever feel like royalty on that one night every year.
76. Better Late Than Never?
One Christmas, my aunt got me a wooden toy playset, recommended for ages 2-4. I was 14.
77. Cash This in the Bank
At my friend’s conservative Catholic family’s house for Thanksgiving, and his older brother told everyone that my pal had gotten a tattoo. His parents were mad and forced him to show them the tattoo. When they saw that it was a dollar sign on his left butt cheek, there were in tears.
78. May I Have This Dance?
When I was a little girl of about five or five years old, I was obsessed with ballerinas. One year for Christmas, my dad got me tickets to a professional performance of The Nutcracker. It was just him and me. I still remember feeling so grown up when we had dinner beforehand in a grown-up restaurant. The ballet was beautiful.
It was just a wonderful day and it’s something that I’ll always cherish.
79. Spoiling the Party
What ruined the holidays for me this year was finding out that my family had a Christmas party...without me. A few days before the 25th, I got a card from them with directions to a charity dinner. I figured that it was their way of telling they weren't doing anything this year. Apparently, it was actually their way of telling me that I wasn't invited.
80. Picture Perfect
For a couple of years my dad had gotten my mother those little ornaments that you put a family picture in, but she would never put one in. Now it has become a tradition to get her one every year knowing that she won't put a picture in it. So our Christmas tree is now filled with those generic stock photo families. We have people from every single race. We always tell people they are our extended family if they don't know about it yet. We have about ten of them now.
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81. Starstruck By Himself
My very first Christmas with my husband’s family after we got married, we were all passing around gifts. Most of his family very graciously gave us the standard newlywed gifts—dishes, towels, picture frames, etc. That is, everyone except for this one uncle. He fancies himself a media producer. He gave me a DVD that he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in, about how to be a good mother.
No, I did not have children at the time, nor was I even pregnant. No, he does not have children. No, he is not in the childcare or child development field. No, he did not notice the bewildered looks on any of our faces. My husband is polite to a fault and would not let me re-gift it back to the uncle the following Christmas, even though my mother-in-law thought it would be hilarious.
82. Your New Home Away from Home
My family was abusive and poor. Growing up, I always kind of hated the Christmas season because it just highlighted how lousy my own family life was. Well, one year after I moved away to college, I was scheduled to work on Christmas Day since I was a Resident Advisor. A student who had been evicted from housing for selling illicit substances came after me and attacked me.
The school told me I should leave the campus until law enforcement caught the kid. I didn't have anywhere to go, so I called my best friend. She and her dad drove all the way to my school on Christmas Eve to get me. When I woke up on Christmas morning, I was stunned. I discovered that my friend’s mom had somehow conjured up a full stocking and a couple of small gifts for me by the time we had arrived.
It was the most amazing gift that I had ever received because I had never had a good Christmas before and then, out of nowhere, my friend’s mom just went so above and beyond to make me feel loved. It was a very special moment that I will never forget for as long as I live.
83. Time Doesn’t Heal All
A few months ago, I decided to cut my toxic mother out of my life. Of course, since it was the holiday season, my grandmother and a few cousins of mine decided that I needed to get into the Christmas spirit and forgive my mother because, "It’s Christmas!" I'm not forgiving someone who isn't sorry. I'm not allowing toxic people back into my life just because it's the holidays.
Dealing with that whole thing really sucked. It completely ruined Christmas for me this year.
84. Meet The Hunters
My family's tradition really freaks some people out. When you hunt, you're only allowed to kill male pheasants, so when you clean one you have to leave the head, a wing, or a foot attached (the roosters have a spur). My sister and I went pheasant hunting and brought some birds home when we were in high school. When my mom cooked the pheasant, she cut off the foot and stuck it on the Christmas wreath.
Now whenever my sister or I kill a new animal, we give my mom something for the wreath. We've got a variety of duck species, a few goose feet, a quail, a deer tail, a turkey foot, lots of feathers, a squirrel foot and tail. That reminds me, I've got some rabbit feet I dried in salt I need to mail her. The wreath actually looks great.
85. A Victim of Circumstance
I had left some video games lying around in my mom's room. She found them and assumed my dad had bought them as Christmas gifts for me. So for Christmas I got... my own games.
86. Father Doesn’t Always Know Best
What has ruined just about every Christmas for me throughout my childhood has been the behavior of my father, who has a drinking problem. He would make up a new lie every year to explain why we didn’t have any presents. His favorite excuse was "They're in my work truck, I forgot to bring them home." He would just keep repeating this line over and over again after Christmas ended too, hoping we would eventually forget. In reality, we would stop asking; but we would never forget.
We usually found him passed out in his car on Christmas morning, still blitzed. He was also the type of person who would just get violently angry during every holiday. I think he's the reason why I have hated Christmas for most of my life. Luckily, I now have a wonderful girlfriend with an amazing family who welcome me into their home every year. Thanks to that, I'm actually starting to enjoy the holidays for a change.
87. No Peeking
My sister and I live on the opposite side of the house from my parents and we have to go through the living room where the presents are to wake them up to get the thing started. For some reason when we were kids we would purposely not look at the presents under the tree until the entire family was awake and ready to start. Really cute thing when we were kids blundering through the living room with our eyes closed.
Now that I'm 20 years old and my sister is 17 it's mostly us walking blind through the living room stubbing our toes on furniture and cursing when we do. Past few years my parents have woken up Christmas morning with me yelling swear words. Ahh, Christmas.
88. O Come All Ye Unfaithful
I found out about my husband’s affair while we were home for Christmas 15 years ago, and those were some very awful days for me. Celebrating the holiday was the last thing on my mind that year. Thankfully, just one year later, I was able to look back on it and say “Wow, I’m so glad I’m having THIS Christmas right now and not last year’s!” Big hugs to anyone who’s ever been through something similar.
89. Spamalot
I lived in Korea. Spam was highly regarded over there and was quite a bit more expensive than back in the States. At Christmas time, they had Spam gift sets for sale all over the place. So I got a five-pack of Spam as a gift set from my boss and his wife. There's just one problem. I’m vegan.
90. Not Quite Words of Love
What ruined Christmas for me was when my dad used a racial slur to refer to my girlfriend while we were over for a holiday visit. We kinda had to leave after that one, especially when he refused to apologize because, in his words, "that's what they're called." Yeah...not the best Christmas dinner for anyone involved. Thanks, dad.
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91. Second Time’s a Charm
A family member of mine was gifted a horribly ugly red and brown purse. She hated it and said it was ugly. She then re-gifted it to me and said maybe it was more my style. It was not. Also, rude…
92. A Slight Change of Plans
If this doesn't ruin Christmas, I don't know what does. My fiancé abruptly decided to cancel our wedding and end our years-long relationship just a couple of days before the winter holidays began. Her rejection completely crushed me. It was just impossible to get into a festive mood after I went through something like that…
93. Keep On Truckin’
The best Christmas gift that I ever received was this awesome toy truck that would respond to voice commands. I was probably about eight or nine years old at the time, and it seemed like the coolest toy in the world to me. I played with that thing all the time because it was fun. It lit up, made noise, and drove forward. Over time, it slowly stopped working and I eventually grew up and forgot all about it.
Nevertheless, my grandma had this policy where she refused to ever throw away any toys that us kids had ever played with. After my grandma passed on in 2017, I was trying to keep busy and decided to clean out my old toy box. To my surprise, I found the toy truck in the box and suddenly remembered how much fun I used to have with it, and how much I loved it.
I opened up the battery compartment, only to make a hilarious discovery. There was a note in my grandpa's handwriting, saying "Mary Lou, don't replace batteries, this thing is annoying.—Bill." I replaced the batteries and discovered that it still works. Learning after all these years that my grandpa had taken the batteries out and that there was nothing actually wrong with the toy made me smile.
I miss my grandparents so much.
94. Lost in Translation
It was a shirt that said, "I'm not a gynecologist, but I'll take a look anyway!" It was from my stepdad’s mom. She knows I want to be a doctor, and her English is no bueno. I found it hilarious. Once we translated it to her she almost cried from embarrassment. I proudly wore it for the rest of the day.
95. Can’t Hardly Wait
Last year, my husband's grandma hosted Christmas dinner at her house and asked us to provide the turkey—but that's not even the trashiest part. We had to go to spend Christmas with my husband's dad's side that morning, so we dropped the turkey off on our way to his dad's house. His grandma said that they would be eating at 4.
We arrived back at his grandma’s house around 3:45 and everyone had already eaten all the food. Including the entire turkey.
96. John McCry
My parents got divorced a week before Christmas. I was eight. That year, after Christmas dinner, my dad put me and my sister to bed. An hour or so later I could hear my dad crying. I went out to hug him. He was watching Die Hard on TV. I sat and watched with him. So now every year, we watch Die Hard together.
97. Something Wicked This Way Comes (to Dinner)
My uncle brought a woman other than his wife. She was crazy. A practicing witch who would "divine" things about us on the spot and ironically accused my other uncle of having an affair. She got drunk and groped me in the coat closet, then tried to kiss me saying, "If only I were young again." I was 16.
98. Family Is What It’s All About
Back in the late 70s and early 80s, my dad was diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer. My mom was having to spend time at the hospitals or waiting for his treatments, so she got some projects to keep her occupied while waiting and worrying. She began working on a flannel patchwork quilt. Whenever I could, I would bring her a small bit of fabric to work into the quilt. Sometimes, I would get off the bus early so I could walk by a fabric store and bring her a new color.
Years went by after my dad passed on. Mom had put the quilt away. I thought it might remind her of all the scary, sad, and heartbreaking times she had hand sewed it through, waiting for the next awful thing to happen on my dad's way out. I did not ever bring it up. But, a decade later when I was having my first Christmas away from my birth family, she sent me a package to open.
It was my first Christmas together with my husband. My family lived several hundred miles away and I felt sort of sad, but also very much in love. When I finally opened the gift, I burst into tears. Inside the package was the quilt, completed. She had written me a note saying that she had continued to work on it after Dad passed, knowing one day that it would be mine. I will keep that quilt all my life and hopefully pass it on to my grandkids someday.
99. Home Is Where the Inheritance Is
What ruined Christmas for me this year? Easy. It was watching my dad and his siblings fighting over my recently deceased grandmother’s house. I really miss my grandma and really hope my family can work this out, especially because it turned out that neither my dad nor his siblings got the house. Instead, she did something that shocked everyone.
The attorney just called to let us know that Grandma randomly left the house to...me. And the rest of her assets are to be divided between me, my brother, and my two cousins. Even though I'm pre-law, I really don’t know what I am going to do.
100. She’ll Give You an I.O.U.
What ruined Christmas for me this year was when my cousin stole $250 from me. Once she got caught, she said something I'll never forget: “But I need the money and you're too spoiled anyway!” She then proceeded to get to keep half of MY money after throwing a crying fit and refusing to give it back until she got some money from her mom.
After all that, I still don’t know why her parents don’t punish her if they actually care about being half-decent.
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101. An Awkward Time to Disappear
My niece and nephew’s uncle on the other side of the family ruined Christmas for us this year. His car was found randomly abandoned on the side of the road in the morning, with his phone on the front seat, vomit all over the car, and the back tire shredded. The whole family had to go out looking for him all day.
When we finally learned the truth, we felt so betrayed. Turns out he was fine. He was just being a complete jerk. They found him at a friend’s house, and then brought him home. This is by no means his first instance of selfish or reckless behavior, just a first that he did this kind of thing on Christmas. Oh, and he also didn’t bother to get his own children any presents, because “they were stolen out of his car.” Sure.
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