Sometimes all it takes is one person to leave a sour taste on holiday visits.
An Unsupportive And Toxic Stepmother
“I hate my stepmom. My siblings hate my stepmom. Literally, everyone but my father hates that vile human being.
My stepmom is an awful racist, which would be almost a non-issue if my dad didn’t happen to have four kids with my very Puerto Rican mother. She has said things very horrific and discriminatory things about other people. She’s gotten mad at a commercial because the person in the commercial was non-white. She’s just generally been disgustingly hateful to any races that weren’t white or East Asian (but only because she liked their aesthetic).
A big ole topper on why I seriously can’t wait for this woman to die is because of what she said to me when I was 17. It was the pretty early days when my Borderline Personality Disorder was starting to manifest in harder to ignore ways. I had a panic attack during her younger son’s birthday party that she insisted I participate in despite the fact that I had only interacted with him maybe four times since she got with my dad. Also, her son is like five years older than me. I kept my self upstairs. I didn’t leave my room. I was quiet. I didn’t scream and cry for my father or do anything that could’ve interrupted the party. But this offended her like nothing else.
And she had to drive me to school the next day. For half an hour. She spent the entire ride telling me what an awful, selfish thing I was. That I was nothing like my father. That I was useless and a burden and it was killing my father. I went to school bawling and my shop teacher, bless his soul, sent me to the counselor. The counselor recommended a psych hospital for me to go to the next day.
Guess who had to drive me to the psych hospital? My stepmother (Before judging my dad for not taking me, he was out of state for work that day and it couldn’t be done). She spent the first half of my appointment refusing to help me fill out forms that she, as my guardian, was supposed to fill out or even just help me with. When the hospital decided I was a harm to myself and needed to be committed, she called her friend and complained about how I was wasting her time, and oh no, she wasn’t at the hospital for her kids. They would never do this to her. Real supportive stuff. Nice lady. I sincerely hope she dies in the worst way.
This isn’t the only stuff – just the worst she’s done to me specifically.”
She Doesn’t Want Her To Know She’s Pregnant?
“Even though I live with my mom and stepdad, I won’t be attending Thanksgiving at my stepdad’s mom’s house because my maternal grandmother will be there. She’s a manipulative narcissist and once I realized all the emotional abuse she put me through, I refuse to interact with her.
Up until this year I would (on special occasions, i.e. family holidays, mother’s day, etc.) tolerate her for my mom’s sake. She’s the only person who will take care of her, even though she hates her too.
The reason I cut that minimal contact is that I’m pregnant. It’s my first child, the first grandchild, and a great-grandchild. I’m due in a couple months, and she doesn’t know, nor will she ever. And if she does find out, she won’t ever be near my baby.
I’ve been criticized by a couple of family members for not speaking to her because she was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. I simply tell them that while that sucks for her it’s not my problem and it doesn’t erase the decades of abuse that she put her children and grandchildren through. I’m also moving a few states away in a week, so this will be my first Christmas without my family. At least my family won’t have to lie to her about my absences anymore.”
How Her Parents Tainted Christmas
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“Twas the night before Christmas.
I was living at home with my parents while finishing up my Master’s degree. The house was decorated, presents were wrapped, Christmas station was on the radio, and cookies were coming out of the oven.
I was hanging out with a friend on Skype, home alone, while my parents and sister were out at work. Everything was calm and normal until my mother burst through the door around a quarter past 4 p.m., ranting and raving about how she was about to ruin Christmas.
Away to the closet, she flew like a flash, grabbing a suitcase in which my father’s clothes to stash. She filled up the suitcase with grimace and glare and exclaimed: ‘That man will not spend Christmas in this house, I declare!’
I stood in the doorway of my bedroom in shock, as she tossed the suitcase outside and worked to change the lock. I asked her if she was sure that’s what she wanted to do, to which she replied: ‘You’d better go for awhile too.’
Donning my winter coat, I went out to the cold, with a cuss and a curse if the truth were to be told. And at this point, I’m done rhyming because the memory still angers me too much.
I walked outside and my younger sister was there. I grabbed her and told her what was going on; that Mom was throwing Dad out of the house, and we shouldn’t be there for awhile because he was going to come home to mad chaos. My father was no saint – cheating on my mom with a woman only slightly older than me. But it’s hard to hold a grudge against one of them when both of them messed up Christmas.
They fought and my sister and I walked around the neighborhood. We went back about two hours later to be sat down and told that they had finally decided to get a divorce. My sister and I were mad and told them it was about time, and that we were angry about their choice of timing.
Later, we all tried to carry on with our usual Christmas Eve traditions as if nothing was wrong. But then Mom went upstairs and started bawling, for hours. My father tried to apologize to my sister and me, but I laughed in his face and stormed out.
I came back a while later and woke up the next morning to a broken family, still trying to pretend like it wasn’t being held together by anything more than make-believe. We had breakfast together, opened presents together, watched both of my parents break down crying when they opened their ‘big gifts’ to each other. Dad got tickets for a NASCAR race, but then he gave them to me for my birthday the next summer like it was some great thing he was doing for me. I got to spend some nice time away with my mom, but still, it was a pretty bad gift.
My parents are both much happier people now, and my relationship with each of them has grown again now that a handful of years have passed. But I don’t visit for Christmas.”
The Stepfather That Was Let Back Home
“I mean, this is fairly recent. More of a ‘that’s why I WON’T be going home for Christmas.’
Growing up, my stepfather was physically abusive to my mom, siblings, and me. Meanwhile, my mother was mentally and emotionally abusive, and acted like my stepfather’s abuse was normal.
As we got older, my stepfather’s abusiveness became more mental, but with outbursts of physical that would get worse and worse as they happened. The most recent one being back in January, which included him beating the crap out of one of my siblings. I, being out of the house for a while now, didn’t see my sibling’s face afterward, but from what I heard, it was messed up. The idiot sat in jail for a while, but my mom manipulated my sibling to not file a complaint against him and didn’t file one herself. So the jerk is back home.
Now for the messed up part. When this happened, my mom said she was done. She wanted to divorce him. She started the process, but decided to drop it because he was the only one working in the house, and she couldn’t ‘bear to be alone’.
So she’s giving him a second chance, and putting this abusive scum before her kids, which we all made it clear that we were not happy with that. I haven’t been back home since the jerk was let back into the house, and I refuse to step foot back in there. I do not trust either of them at this point, and honestly, I hope that once my younger sibling moves out soon.
Unless one of my older siblings hosts a holiday, I’m spending it with my biological father or my fiance’s family.”
“I Was The Equivalent To Harry Potter At His Aunt’s House”
“My mom and dad had me in high school and then separated, so they never really had a relationship.
Growing up, they decided that I will live with my mom, and my dad will get me every other weekend. My mother was raised in the home of oh-so-loving Southern Baptists who did everything but condemn her for having me. She ended up being strict, and it got to the point where I was just constantly fighting with her and didn’t do much because I was always grounded. My dad was great at the time because I could do whatever, and he was always really nice to me, so naturally, around 10 years old, I decided to move in with him. A custody battle ensues, and eventually, my parents decide to switch the roles.
Living with my dad and stepmom was pretty great at first, I got to do whatever I wanted, and they were pretty well off, so I got a lot too. But as I matured, I started to see them for who they really were. My dad was a compulsive liar on top of being diagnosed as bipolar. My stepmom had unspecified issues, but there were many, and after they had a child together I was living as a prisoner in my own home. He became this saint and I was the equivalent to Harry Potter at his aunt’s house. My dad and I started to get into it when I was in high school, not physical at first, but we got there a couple times. I started to just spend more time at my friend’s place than I did at home.
On my 16th birthday, my mom bought me opening day tickets (I had since bonded with her and my stepdad, and they are everything to me now) but I had to skip school to go. That was all my dad needed to flip his switch. The night before, he decides that I can’t go to the game, and shows up at my moms to pick me up. I get in, and he proceeds to flip out. We argue, go at it, and he says that because I’m skipping school I’m going to be truant and that I will go to jail. I start laughing in his face, so he decides to actually take me there.
We pull up to the police station, and he starts blaring this story that I won’t stop threatening my life or his, and that I am not safe to be around, and basically begs him to arrest me. The cop said he had no grounds to arrest me, but suugest that my dad take me to the psych ward. He heads directly there. We get there and they are demanding that I get evaluated for the safety of the family, and I’m just standing there, trying to figure out which emotion would make me seem the least amount of crazy to them. I try stepping out to call my mom, and tell her what was going on, but my dad told them I was trying to run so I had to stay inside. I had to go through three different extensive evaluations, asking me how I felt about what is happening to how happy I am, and all these nonsense trap questions. I somehow stayed calm through it all, even laughing a little because it seemed as the better alternative to losing it. They eventually release me and I ended up leaving with my mom.
Two days later, I’m sitting in class and the principal walks in and takes me out of class with two officers, tells me I have a warrant for my arrest, and they cuff me and take me back to the ward. This time, they admit me and put me in one of those rooms with like the soft white walls. I ask them if I can use my phone to call my mom because this is intimidating and I don’t what’s going set them off to think that I’m crazy because they were definitely treating me like I am crazy. So they let me call her, and she shows up raising chaos. She’s screaming for the doctor in charge, demanding to know why I was admitted even though I was completely cleared of not mental illness two days prior at the same place, and what grounds they had to hold me like this. Turned out that my dad had a judge as a friend, and put out a warrant that basically had no reason for my arrest.
After all that, I never went back to see him again. He has since tried to mend the bridge because I have a kid now, which I tried for a couple months, and then he was gone. I have also tried to fix the relationship with my younger brother who lives with him, but that hasn’t really worked. Easy to say, we won’t be spending the holidays together.”
Not Feeling Accepted By Family…
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“My mother kicked me out after my stepfather turned angry towards me, so I argued back. Before this, we were very close. So, I moved to my father’s who I’d always had a rocky relationship but he’d sobered up slightly and we got on better. None of them accept my being transgender.
My father and I don’t get on well for long periods of time, so I moved to my partner’s house.
My partner is fully accepting of me being transgender. He’s known me for 3 years and we’ve been dating 2, moved in after 1 year of dating. He introduced me to his family (mother, father, stepfather, brother, and his mother’s family) as who I am. After 3 years, all but one refuse to use my correct pronouns, and the one who does is a hardcore religious follower, his father. He doesn’t understand it but accepts I make his son happy and therefore accepts me, to some extent, just a mutual agreement I suppose.
My partner’s mother’s family has made up many rumors about me and despite every explanation possible, they refuse to accept or even try to use the correct pronouns. The only thing they got down is the name as my dead name is long gone except to my birth parents, siblings and the man my mother is married to. I don’t really speak to any of them except my mother bimonthly and my father every few days. Everybody else from there is cut out.
So, I don’t want to spend Christmas with either my birth family or partner’s family (except for the father but he remarried and has 4 kids to look after), and I’m aiming to move with my partner back to my hometown for many reasons, his family isn’t one of the reasons but more of a good side effect.
Give me some chocolate and a laptop with WiFi, then I’m content with my Christmas.”
Cutting His Psycho Sister Out Of His Life
“My sister is a nutjob. I had been living an opposite life since I worked overnights for a couple years at this point.
One day, 12:05 a.m. rolls around, and I’m starting my day. Bam! A stream of angry, hateful texts about how I forgot her birthday and I’m no longer family because I’m the worst level of scum on Earth.
Well good morning to you too.
Eight months later, our dad was hospitalized. Outside the room, she blows up and makes a huge scene about how self-centered, inconsiderate, and horrible I am because I still never wished her a happy birthday.
Woman, you’re 35, that’s 25 years too many to care about me being five minutes late to saying: ‘Happy Birthday.’ I left the scene, only to get more angry texts about being disowned. Cool. I blocked her number. Other sister reports that nutbar is deleting me from every email, social media, and contact list she has.
One year later, there are no stressful, poisonous, or backhanded texts messages out of the blue. There are no calls tearing down my life choices or berating me for being in the position I am. No more being forced to sit with her at Christmas and Thanksgiving while she insults my wife or her family or strangers passing by in public.
I wish I knew that cutting psychos out of my life was so good for my health, I’d have done it sooner.”
A Good-For-Nothing Brother
“My father wasn’t around when we were young, and our mother just let us do whatever with little to no consequences, so my brother took it upon himself to try and control me by holding me down and beating me with carpet rollers, hard plastic hair brushes, baseball bat, just whatever he could get his hands on.
My mother ‘tried’ to stop this, but he was the perfect child of the family. My grandmother spoiled him, buying him whatever he wanted, and I was just a slave to her. I did all of her housework/yard work when my mom dropped us off over there to ‘spend time’ with her. My brother would just go play games on the big TV she had, while I cleaned the whole house and grabbed everything she needed while she watched TV in the kitchen, smoking most of the day.
At home, when I was younger, I had one of those hotel locks on my door that I bought, borrowing money from a friend, so he couldn’t come in my room in the middle of the night and attack me anymore.
When I was around 15, I started to defend myself, so he started to attack my mother and grandmother instead because they were weaker than him. They still spoiled him and bought him with whatever he wanted. They even took him out of school to be homeschooled so he could play video games 24/7. It took him at least three years more to graduate than if he had stayed in high school.
He is 28 now. He has worked a total of fewer than two years since he was 18. He lives off of my grandmother while manipulating women to live with him at my grandmother’s house so they can go to work and financially support him to buy video games and go out to eat. He is still very verbally/physically abusive to everyone in my family and has physically assaulted every member. Meanwhile, they all refuse to do anything about it. They constantly call me and tell me I need to stop holding grudges and be nice to him and be a good brother. Last year, I went over there, and he started a fight with me because I wouldn’t do something he wanted. So I beat him up. While this happened, my family said they were going to call the police on me.”
She Acted Like She Didn’t Want Her There!
“I wasn’t planning on going home for Thanksgiving, but my mom begged because my older brother was coming home.
She had been increasingly abusive leading up to this. I was struggling to deal with her yelling at me over the phone on a daily basis and being passive aggressive all the time, but she swore she’d cook a nice meal and we’d have a lovely day as a family. She even said she’d make up the guest room for me, so I agreed. We settled on the Saturday after Thanksgiving at her request, because she already had dinner plans on the actual holiday.
When my partner and I got to her house, though I should’ve known what we’d walk into. My mom was in hyper-stressed-lashing-out mode, frantically cleaning, slamming things, and was furious for no apparent reason. She wouldn’t look at me or speak to me and was short-tempered with my partner. There was no dinner, she angrily announced that since we’d spent Thanksgiving day with my partner’s family, there was ‘no point’ in her cooking a meal. She refused to acknowledge me at all until my brother and his family arrived, at which point she halfway pretended everything was fine while still icing me out, and ordered pizza for ‘Thanksgiving.’
By the end of the evening, I was too upset and confused by her behavior to feel comfortable staying the night as planned, so we let her know we were heading home. Well, the news just made everything worse.
She called me two days later, screaming so loudly that my partner could hear her in another room. She was yelling about how I had ruined Thanksgiving, and I’d clearly chosen my partner’s family over her, which she always knew I would do. I did it with my ex’s family, she can’t compete with ‘real families,’ and I’m always running to any family but her. She was tired of walking on eggshells around me, and if I had a problem with the way she talks to me, I need to get over myself and my stupid feelings. This went on for almost two hours while I quietly cried and said nothing because there’s nothing anyone can say to stop her when she’s like that. The conversation finally ended with her saying she didn’t want to talk to me for a while.
She didn’t talk to me for almost a year until my dad died (divorced and long estranged). She immediately started calling me daily, making me late for work with two-hour conversations in which she’d make everything about her and subject me to thinly veiled verbal abuse. I finally asked her — far more politely than she deserved — if she could stop calling me in the morning because it was upsetting to talk about my dad before work. She got angry. That was the last time we actually talked. It’s been over two years. She sends hateful letters sometimes and has essentially disowned me, but that’s it.
I don’t think I’m ever going to go ‘home’ for a holiday again.”
Her Sister And Her Sister’s Boyfriend
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“My sister is narcissistic and verbally abusive to everyone around her, including her son, myself, and even my parents. The past two Christmases with her have been miserable, with fights starting for no reason at all.
Last year, she brought her new boyfriend. Her boyfriend had never met my son but proceeded to chastise him and get on to him all night. My son was only 6 years old at the time and was on his very best behavior.
I discussed this with my sister, with my parents, and with a few of my siblings. Everyone acted like I was blowing it out of control. However, when you make a 6-year-old cry on Christmas, I’m not going to be too happy.
I haven’t seen any of my family since then. However, a few are trying to make amends with me. I had dinner with my mom and dad last weekend, and coffee with my brother and his wife last night. Apparently, the situation was brought up to the boyfriend many times, and he informed them that ‘his girlfriend would not have a nephew who is a complete brat, and he had been warned.’ My family is finally seeing that my sister is not such an innocent sweetheart. Guess we’ll see how it goes.”
Her Grandmother Didn’t Favor Her?
“I refuse to see my grandmother for any holidays.
Up until the last couple years, I would see her every year, and I was the only one of five grandkids who did so. She consistently verbally abuses me in a passive aggressive way while my grandfather just sits back and let’s her (but then again that man has been beaten so far down over the decades I can’t entirely be mad at him). She verbally abuses my husband, which I no longer tolerate after her first few cracks. She cracks on my long-dead father as if I will laugh and agree with her. She favors my sister (giving her credit cards to use as she pleases, paying her bills, buying her a car), regardless of me being the only one to call or visit for a decade. She couldn’t care less about my brother and me because we actually work for a living rather than try to pretend we’re disabled and refuse to work like my sister.
My family could fund Jerry Springer for a few seasons with of shows, but that’s why I won’t visit her for Christmas.”