Your WORSTEST Christmas Eve ever?

[asdf2231]

Christmas 1988.

Maybe 12 inches of snow on the ground and bitter cold.
 
College, and I had a part time job working at a residential treatment facility that cared for people with moderatly severe mental illnesses, and discovering how very much I was mistaken when I decided on a psych major, lol.
 
Had to work Christmas eve and Christmas Day.  All the roomates are going home for the whole Christmas Vacation thing.
 
Two days before Christmas Eve they shut the phone off because we were too broke to pay the bill for the house.  Cable had been let go a week before.
 
Work 12 hours Christmas Eve, most of it trying to keep a house full of psychos calm, with breaks to help them do their house work (which meant doing it for them. And some of them were crazy enough to have less than sanitary habits.)
 
Stagger the 3 mile walk back to the house thinking I would just eat and watch a movie.
Totally bummed that I can't even call my family.  Went to work in pitch black, returned home in the pitch black.
 
House is empty of all 4 other roomates. One of them took ALL of the videos tapes with him. No Cable, no local TV.  NOTHING in the house to eat except for a single can of Cream Of Celery Soup and half a bag of fish sticks.  Put in the fish sticks and sit down.  Fall asleep to be woken by the smoke alarm when the fish sticks burned in the oven. Contemplate Celery soup, and throw on winter garb and trudge a half mile through the cold to the only thing open, the gas station, to try to buy food.  Figure on renting a movie to cheer myself up.
 
Store is completely, COMPLETELY picked over.  Wind up going home with a can of Dinty Moore Beef stew (Which I hate) and a few Ramen Noodles.  The ONLY movie left on the rack that didn't have a Pre School Kid's theme was Mississippi Burning.
 
Eat Ramens and Crappy Stew and watch a thouroughly depressing film.
 
Get up at 5 am Christmas morning, eat Ramen for breakfast, walk 3 miles through the fricking cold, and spend the day with 12 totally unhinged crazy people.  I did get a good meal that day though.
 
They watched the same ******* Manheim Steamroller video tape 14 times that day.
 
Went home that night and finished the day with Ramen noodles and a couple of pieces of fruit I swiped from the nuthouse pantry.
 
The nutters also got a gift for every staff member but me that day. I forget his name, who was locked up for being a pyro told me they didn't get me one because I was a "meanie".
 
Worst Frakking Christmas EVER. 

[djones520]

Probably Chrismas of 91.  My dad was in Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield.  Didn't help that we where living in Louisiana at the time either.

[Hawkgirl]

I don't recall ever having a bad Christmas Eve....

[thundley4]

Christmas of '83. I left Orlando Naval station in a 63 convertible with no heat to head for Illinois. I left on the 23rd, spent the night near Valdosta Georgia, woke up to freezing temperatures and continued on.  I did not see another car on the interstate in Illinois except for one state trooper.  The roads were snow packed and icy, but I made it to my sis and bil's house near Effingham.  I stood by their wood stove for an hour before I started to warm enough to shiver. I found out from them that the roads had been closed since that morning.  I think the cop was afraid to stop someone in that weather with Florida plates on the car.

[Peter3_1]

Most all were mellow, but 12/25/1997 was very bad. Mon died last Sat in Aug. 1997, Dad died first Sunday in Oct. 1997. For the first time in my life there was no tree lighting up the living room where we had celebrated Christmas since 12/25/1950. It was very hard.

[rich_t]

Christmas 1990.

I was in the Gulf for the 1st Gulf War and the mess tent burnt down.  An MRE Christmas dinner.

 

[Chris_]

About 20 years ago, I briefly co-owned a business.  I spent Christmas Eve working in the office, alone, until well after midnight.

The next day I was too tired to drive the several hours to visit my family and spent Christmas sleeping and then hanging around alone at home.

[Carl]

Christmas eve and day in 1980,I was just barely 16 and the tractor on the manure spreader (dairy farm) quit halfway to the field and couldn`t get another one started in the cold of the afternoon.
Wanted to borrow a neighbors to try to get the load spread but father who was in the beginnings of diabetes wouldn`t hear of it and was no longer able in his old age (75) to do much.
A great argument ensued as it would mean the rest of the winter cleaning the gutters by wheelbarrow into a pile outside as the manure in the spreader was going to freeze into a large rock.
There was only about 30 cows so it could be done but was a pain and I was the one to have to do it.

Christmas morning it was 40 below with a wind blowing and water pipes in the barn were frozen,the oil in the vaccum pump was so thick it wouldn`t turn over....etc.
I finally got done milking and feeding at about 11:00 am frozen and still mad about the other issue and what I now faced for a few months.

Now I understand the where and why he felt the way he did but of course at that age I knew everything.
It all seems so silly and trivial now.
Kind of was the beginning of the end as the farm went though.

[Chris]

I don't recall ever having a bad Christmas Eve....

I don't think I've ever had a bad one either, but this one qualifies is close.  I had to go to the store to pick up groceries for tomorrow night.  Not only did it suck, I got there ten minutes before they were closing the doors.  It was a madhouse.  There are probably still people there standing in the checkout line.

I couldn't find any ribeye worth buying.  The only thing they sell are "thin cut" ribeyes.  I picked up a couple of nice looking strip steaks.

[Lord Undies]

Christmas 1964.  I was raped by three of Santa's elves while Santa went to "feed his reindeer".

 :innocent:

[Chris_]

Christmas 1964.  I was raped by three of Santa's elves while Santa went to "feed his reindeer".

 :innocent:

Hey, now you pay for that stuff.

[Traveshamockery]

This one's not so great but I really can't complain - this is the first Christmas in many, many years that my son isn't here but I guess it's not all bad.  He's doing his internship at a TV station and has been tasked with doing the sports anchoring yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  I've gotten to see a couple of the videos of him from yesterday and earlier today, so that makes it **okay** but it's just not Christmas without him. 

[Lord Undies]

Hey, now you pay for that stuff.

And I get change back!

[Airwolf]

As everyone knows here my father passed away so this year would have to be it in 2008.

[Lord Undies]

As everyone knows here my father passed away so this year would have to be it in 2008.

May I give you a piece of peace?  This comes from a guy who has known the heartache of losing parents.  My mother died when I was 18 and she was 48.  My dad died when I was 45 and he was 80.  Neither time was easy.  I have had to do a lot of reconciling in my life.

The truth is, if we and they are lucky, our parents go before us.  It's the design. 

No matter how old my kids get, I still want to die before one of them goes.  I don't think my life would be good anymore if I outlived my kids.

The Law Of Emotional Consequences reads:  All parents must die before their kids.  Or at least it should.

I've carried on for years without my parents.  They never had to carry on without me.  My death would have killed them.

[JohnnyReb]

1951, I was 6 years old and in the hospital close to dying. I had already been there for about 10 days and my mother wanted me to have something in the way of a Christmas experience even in the hospital. She bought a 15/16" high little Christmas tree, cardboard cone with different colored glass rods wrapped with green garlan sticking out and a 15W light bulb inside. When you plugged it up, the glass rods just shone so brightly, it was lovely. For the next 45 years, where ever I went, that little tree went with me and I would put it for Christmas. If I had my liitle tree, it was Christmas enough for me.

Maybe Christmas 1951 wasn't so bad after all. Maybe it was the best one I ever had.

[Thor]

Last Christmas was by far the worst one for me. All of the others, even when I was deployed abroad, pale in comparison.

[Airwolf]

May I give you a piece of peace?  This comes from a guy who has known the heartache of losing parents.  My mother died when I was 18 and she was 48.  My dad died when I was 45 and he was 80.  Neither time was easy.  I have had to do a lot of reconciling in my life.

The truth is, if we and they are lucky, our parents go before us.  It's the design. 

No matter how old my kids get, I still want to die before one of them goes.  I don't think my life would be good anymore if I outlived my kids.

The Law Of Emotional Consequences reads:  All parents must die before their kids.  Or at least it should.

I've carried on for years without my parents.  They never had to carry on without me.  My death would have killed them.

Thanks LU and Merry Christmas