Ah, the holidays. The time when we clench our fists and muster up an otherworldly amount of courage to face our extended family, all in the name of a good feast and a coupla pairs of socks and regifted scented candles.
In between reaching for another helping of turkey or raiding the esky for any drop of booze available, you’re forced to trade barbs with your fuckwit cousin or your batshit aunt which is when disaster is bound to strike.
In the spirit of the season, a bunch of Reddit users have recounted their most messed up family dinner experiences over the holidays and man are there some crackers in there.
Buckle the fuck up…
MAKE THE HOLIDAYS GREAT AGAIN
The drunk uncle that married into the family praised Trump and called Obama the “n” word during dinner.
That was two years ago and he ain’t been to a Thanksgiving day since.
STRIP THE HALLS
My uncle and father-in-law were having a loud discussion about an old, fat stripper at a shady nightclub during dinner. My super religious grandpa started giggling and admitted he’d seen her before.
My husband relayed the time the stripper had given him two black eyes. Grandma got pissed and the rest of the super religious family got a little butthurt.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, YA FILTHY ANIMAL
About five years ago on Christmas, my cat got diarrhea all over herself and being the nutcase that she is, she wouldn’t let anybody touch her and ended up painting the house brown.
DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS
My mum walked out on my brother and I during Christmas morning, so we ended up deep frying the turkey and doing cocaine with our Christmas money.
Good times.
LIES MAKE BABY JESUS CRY
When I was about five years old we had my grandparents over for Christmas dinner. While my (areligious) mother was in the kitchen, my grandmother pulled me aside to talk.
She said, “When you die, you will go to heaven. You won’t be able to see your mummy anymore, though, because she doesn’t believe in God. But I will be there to take care of you.”
I went crying to my mum the next day and told her that I don’t want her to go away forever. Needless to say, she was furious at her mother-in-law and I grew up to be an atheist.
SHITTING AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE
My entire family of 12 got food poisoning from Christmas dinner at my house. We’re convinced it was from the turkey because everybody ate some of it.
I luckily got everybody outside and it was disgusting (think the movie Bridesmaids).
CHRISTMAS BEER
When I was 14 my family decided to go out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving. This restaurant in particular served all sorts of cutesy martinis – appletinis, mochatinis, you name it it had a ‘-tini’ in the name.
Six or seven rounds later everyone was so drunk that they cried. I was also allotted quite a few sips so for a very naïve fourteen-year-old I was pretty drunk.
They decided that I was the most sober out of everyone there (and I’m pretty sure I was) so they made me drive them all back to my aunt’s house.
I basically learned to drive right then. Keep in mind the ‘car’ was my aunt’s house-sized SUV that went from 0 to 60 in maybe two hours. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing but somehow I got everyone home.
No one ever, ever talks about that night. However when I passed my driving test two years later I got a lot of responses along the line of ‘We all knew you’d pass!’ Uh yeah, flooring it down the freeway as a sloshed fourteen-year-old teaches you pretty fucking quick.
MERRY EX-MAS
My ex told me he was in love with another woman six days before Christmas and then I had to spend Christmas with his family.
This was four years ago. It totally sucked.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS SALMONELLA
My senile grandmother prepared dinner as usual and no one was allowed in the kitchen during the cooking as she was typically a Terminator when it came to banging out a rock-solid spread that would put any Christmas stock photography to shame and we knew better than to get into her way.
Welp, not that year. We came into the dining room to the usual spread of turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, ham, mushroom gravy, and so on. Only nothing had been cooked. Nothing. The turkey was stuffed, but it was merely defrosted. The ham was cold, as it hadn’t been cooked at all. The “gravy” was more like mushroom and butter floating in water. The sweet potatoes… well, no need to go on.
It was awkward. We pretended to eat, but not for long. After she went to bed we went out for Chinese.
YAMILY DRAMA
A few Christmases ago when I was in seventh grade my grandmother, uncle and his two adult daughters (my cousins) came over and spent their vacation with us.
It was very nice but then on the 26th my uncle made a confession: my father, aunt and uncle’s half-sister who no one else knew about wanted to meet everyone. Turns out my grandfather had had an affair and a love child that he decided to abandon almost entirely.
As an adult she sought out her siblings and even her father (who denied to see her). My father and aunt have extremely common names so they were no use but my uncle’s name (Kipfer) yielded actual results.
The biggest problems with this confession: My grandfather had died before I was even born. My grandmother found out her late husband cheated on her and fathered a child she never knew about (and then learned about it from her son) and probably worst of all, my uncle had waited five years to tell us this. (During those five years there was a span of over two months where he lived with us).
We fought all the way over to her house (which was in driving distance) but as soon as we met her she was welcomed and gladly accepted into the family. I’m glad I get to call her my aunt and that I get to call her beautiful daughter my cousin.
HAVE YOURSELF A SHITTY LITTLE CHRISTMAS BONUS
I was expecting a big cash bonus from work. I got the whole family together and told them we were getting a pool with the bonus money.
I opened up the envelope and it was a certificate giving me a year’s subscription to the jelly of the month club.
SHITMAS
Two Christmases ago I went to a party with some friends. Christmas Eve, I wake up at 3 AM and immediately begin throwing up every three to five minutes until midday, accompanied by an inability to maintain my bowels. Whether I drank water or left my stomach empty, the heaving wracked me consistently, to the point of physical exhaustion and pain.
And once, I shit myself because I sneezed.
As it turns out, every guest who had been at the party had contracted a stomach virus from a friend of a friend. Who didn’t even celebrate Christmas.
The sickness carried on for a week afterwards. Never been that sick.
