The holidays are a tough time for some people, and for some of them, the thought of dealing family is just too much to handle. Check out these stories of disastrous Christmases past.
Two Tragic Deaths On Christmas
My elderly grandmother (my mom’s mom) is the only other family member we have, and she lives alone in her house about 10 minutes away from us and is fiercely independent. Sweetest and most selfless woman I’ve ever met. Mom makes a phone call to her to wish her a Merry Christmas. She doesn’t answer, but my mom thinks, oh, maybe she slept in today. She tries to call again an hour later, and still no answer. As my parents are finishing up the cooking for our holiday meal, my dad calls grandma and says that if she doesn’t answer, he’ll drive down to see what’s up. A third phone call, still no answer. I stay home with our dog while my parents go to check on my grandma. I call my boyfriend and he comes over to my house and I prepare for the worst and put away the uneaten food. About half an hour later, mom calls me and says they’re in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. They found my grandma face down on the kitchen floor but still breathing. She had a broken hip from her fall and had suffered two heart attacks before passing away while in hospice a few days later.
Overall, a terrible Christmas. It made my boyfriend and I super close, given our shared tragedies and days of endlessly comforting each other. Christmas is a tough subject for both our families now. We’re really not looking forward to the holidays this year.”
Twisted Grandparents Set Out To Injure The Kids
“I would have been around 11 years old. I got yelled at all morning to get back to bed. I was excited to open my presents.
I was eventually allowed down. I opened my presents and had to put everything straight away so my grandparents couldn’t see what I got because I would be accused of being a brat.
My grandparents arrived, and I just played the Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue game on my GameBoy Color. My grandparents went to the bathroom at some point while I was in my room. On the way down, they put a nail facing up on the stairs. When I was called down to lunch, I jumped down the first few stairs and landed on a nail.
The nail hurt. I started crying because it was so painful. I got yelled at for making a fuss and told to go eat dinner quietly. I finish dinner and go back upstairs out of the way. My foot now has a huge blood blister on the bottom and is all bruised. Eventually, I’m sick of being alone in my room and venture back downstairs where my mom and my grandparents start making snide remarks before my mom starts teasing me about my Power Ranger game. My grandparents then go and tell my cousins about the game and they have a go at me the next time I see them.”
A Scary Moment As A Grandma Goes Catatonic
“Every year my mom’s grandma stays at our house for Christmas. Her husband passed almost 30 years ago, and most of her family is estranged after fighting pretty nastily over details of his will. She was 85 that year and was super proud of her excellent health. She would always brag that she’d never had to take medication other than a multivitamin. Like usual, Great Grandma comes to our house, we make fudge and listen to Christmas music.
She loves games. For decades she’s started out each morning with a pastry and a round of Solitaire and we were all gathered around the table playing one of her favorite card games. I was sitting to her left, my mom sitting left of me, around the dining room table. We’re playing the game and I look over at her and she’s weirdly frozen with a faint smile on her face. I was confused. My mom looked at her and screamed, jumping over me and grabbing her. She’s yelling ‘Gram! Gram!’ and starts sobbing. My brain connects that something awful is happening and I call 911.
I was so calm, I don’t know how I did it. My mom was literally screaming next to me. I tell the dispatcher we need an ambulance, my grandma has had a stroke or something. I’m giving them information, and as I’m on the phone, I kneel down next to my Gram, who hasn’t moved. She still has this frozen half-smile on her face and her eyes are glazed over. I looked into her eyes, put my hand on her hand, and mouthed ‘I love you.’ I watched her eyes unglaze, and, like for a second, they looked like someone was behind them, and she mouthed it back. ‘I love you.’ Then she went completely unresponsive again. I kept talking to the dispatcher, but it was so surreal. I thought those were her last words to me or to anyone. Her blood sugar went out of whack and she had an unresponsive episode. After Christmas, her health has started failing. She’s not allowed to eat her morning pastries, and she doesn’t have the energy to play Solitaire anymore. It’s really hard to watch, and we think this might be her last Christmas. But we were really lucky to have gotten her back that day.”
A Wife Reacts Unreasonably To An Accident
“Christmas morning my (now ex) wife mule kicked me in the shins in her sleep (she flailed around in her sleep a lot).
Like any normal human being that’s asleep and kicked in the shins, I woke up crying out in pain and surprise. When I realized she had done it by accident in her sleep, I rolled over and went back to sleep until the alarm went off.
After my hour-long morning workout, I came upstairs to find her completely dressed, putting on her shoes, heading out the door. We were supposed to go to her sister’s house for Christmas that morning. Confused, I asked if she had to go early to help or something, and that I still had to shower.
She didn’t have to go early for any in particular, but she wanted to go alone, and the reason absolutely baffled me.