35 Stories From People Who Probably Had A Worst Christmas Than You

My birthday is 7 days after Christmas. For Christmas I was given a card. Taped Inside was 10 quarters. All it said was Grandma. No merry Christmas. No Love grandma. 7 days later. For my 18th birthday I received another card from my grandmother. In fact it was the same card. Obviously part of a box of 20 or so. Inside, 10 more quarters. Total given to me for Christmas and my birthday? $5 in quarters.

Fine. She’s elderly I think. Maybe she can’t afford to get lavish gifts? NOPE! My little sister got a Barbie dream house for Christmas. My 5 year old cousin got a brand new PS2 (this was the Christmas they came out.) nope. I was shafted. Then to add more insult to injury, when my cousin broke that PS2 by pouring a juice box into it and shoving a cookie in the disk reader, she bought him a new one for his birthday in February.

February.

The worst I can remember is when I was ten, when I wrote a letter to Santa asking him to help my mom quit smoking (I believe it was around then that D.A.R.E. started). My mom, of course, read the letter, and she took me aside and told me never to bring that up with her again. And that's how I found out there was no Santa.

2013. My dad had a massive stroke 4 days prior, so it was spent watching him struggle to even speak while my mother was down the hall in ICU fighting sepsis.

It was day six of my prison sentence. I was still in administrative segregation before being taken to gen-pop a day or two later, so I spent Christmas that year in a tiny cell with no one to talk to and nothing to do. I cried for a lot of it.

Honestly, I've never really celebrated Christmas since.

I had my leg amputated a week before and had to stay in hospital for a month after
Contrary to movies and TV, the hospital did nothing special for the patients on xmas day

My dad passed on Christmas Eve and I was snowed in and couldnt get to my family until a couple days later. It wasn’t a terrible Christmas, but it’s affected every Christmas since with his memory. Joyful memories about how he loved Christmas and our time together. I miss him immensely at this time of year.

The Christmas I was 13 and my mom confirmed what I already knew, that Santa wasn’t real. Something about her saying the words, and following it up with “I don’t have a lot of money so think of a few budget friendly ideas and don’t tell your siblings.” Even though I knew it was all make believe, her confirmation felt like it sucked all the joy and magic out of that Christmas.

Christmas 1965 when I was 13. I was asked to go bring our elderly neighbor over to our house. There was no answer at the door, I let myself in and he looked dead on the kitchen floor. I went to check him and his normally very friendly dog attacked me. Lost a neighbor, got my face stitched up and my family adopted his dog who never liked me.

On Christmas Eve, I had a phone call ‘supposedly from my credit co-op’s fraud dept’ telling me that I had possible fraudulent transactions on my account! When I went online to check, there were indeed 3 fraudulent transactions from England, (I am in Australia) Naturally, I assumed, because of these fraudulent transactions that I was speaking with the genuine fraud department. As it turns out, they scammed me out of nearly $AU6,000! even though throughout the telephone conversation, I consistently questioned their identification, and in fact, was on the phone for over 90 minutes because of my reluctance to do what they wished. The man on the phone continued to assure me that he had proved that he was genuine and that if I didn’t act immediately, the offenders would be able to scam more out of my account! However, in the end, I was duped! and I am so very ashamed to admit that! at the end of the conversation the person, (who had all the correct dialogue and terms) asked me to hold on whilst they completed the safety precautions. After 2 minutes the phone was disconnected!! I knew immediately that I had been completely stupid, and rang my credit co-op! Thank goodness that I did! the person that I spoke with was very helpful, but to be honest quite unsympathetic, however, she thought that she could stop half of my money from moving out of my account, (at this stage not guaranteed) and immediately referred everything to the correct branch of my bank. In the meantime, my card was cancelled (to be replaced, but because of Christmas and New Year, this could take at least 2 weeks) and my account was frozen so that neither I, nor anyone else could access my account! Whilst I was speaking with her, I received an email from the ‘ACTUAL’ fraud department of my credit co op, and when I told the operator (with whom I was speaking) who it was from, she told me that ‘yes this was their genuine fraud dept’ contacting me. When I got off the phone with her (Rachel) I had a voice mail on my phone from the (genuine) fraud dept, asking about the irregular movement on my account. After explaining everything to them, they felt that the ‘second’ movement of money on my account could be stopped, however, again at this stage, this was not guaranteed. Finally, yesterday, I was contacted by both my credit co op and the fraud dept, and was told that all of my money had indeed been restored to my account! I have submitted a dispute claim for the three fraudulent transactions on my credit card (resolution could take a few weeks) and today, although still feeling very foolish (I am not usually a gullible senior citizen) I can now allow my stomach to settle and to try to regain some of the joy that Christmas brings us! My advice after experiencing this horrendous, sickening ordeal, is: if you are even a tiny bit suspicious of whom you are talking to in a similar situation, tell the person on the phone, that you would like to speak to someone else (husband, son, son in law etc) and that you would like to ring them back, and immediately ring your bank/credit union! I am not a stupid person, in fact, I am very switched on! I may have reached what society classes as ‘elderly’ but I am well aware of the scams going around, and the use of technology, and yet, I was still scammed! As I said, I am ashamed to admit to that! Thankfully, I realised quickly what had happened and the outcome was positive, however, so often this is not the case. These mongrel, heartless individuals are preying on the elderly and they should be hung! the loss of $6,000 would not have left me destitute, as I have a small nest egg tucked away in a different credit union, however, as an aged pensioner, who lives simply on that pension, this would have been devastating to me! Please, talk to your parents/grandparents about the scams that are being perpetrated and as I said, if they feel even the slightest doubt about what is transpiring, tell them to hang up and ring their bank/credit union. I do not want anyone to experience the traumatic days that I have had over Christmas 2022! Original question: What is the worst thing that happened to you on Christmas?

I had a labrador who peed on the Christmas tree a few years ago. We tried to stop him, we chased him, then the Christmas tree fell on the puddle of pee.

Not to me but to my mum, and not on Christmas but on Boxing Day (December 26th for those in North America). I think it was 2009 I just remember hearing a loud noise and then the sound of repeated thudding in the middle of the night. My dad came into my bedroom shortly after and woke me up saying “wake up! Mum’s had an accident, she fell down the stairs!”. Mum was lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs with a bad concussion. My dad had already phoned for an ambulance and they arrived within about 20 min. She was taken to our local hospital and treated there. Thankfully she was OK and was discharged the next day but it was a worrying few hours for us I can tell you! My mum was only 53 at the time and she says the last thing she remembers before falling was getting up out of bed to be sick, so what had happened was she had drank a bit too much on Christmas Day and was still slightly drunk, which is what caused her to fall. It's not something we like to forget about in our family and my brother and I always like to tease her about it every year. The worst thing that has happened to me was last year when I tested positive for Covid 8 days before Christmas and had to spend Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing Day isolating in my house with only my cats and my lodger (who was out most of the day celebrating round a friend’s house) for company. I know it could have been much, much worse however!

Neighbor's house caught on fire, so we had to evacuate onto the icy cold streets with over a foot of snow in the middle of the night.

Siding on our house melted and there were char marks, had to file insurance claims. Everything inside our house smelled burnt.

Me, my partner and our daughter all came down with norovirus Christmas Day. I was first, in the morning in between opening gifts and the extended family arriving for their Christmas dinner, my partner went down about 2 hours later and our daughter later that day. I was sitting having a morning mince pie and Irish cream and suddenly had to run off to projectile vomit. The extended family arrived and then went home without any dinner and we spent most of the day lying around groaning running back and forth to the loo. My birthday is the day after Christmas, so I had to cancel my birthday party too. It took me 3 years to eat a mince pie again and I now have a fear of illness ruining Christmas Day every year!

The oven died and I woke up to my mom screaming at my dad about how my Christmas was ruined.

A little backstory:

I was in my last year of university, I was home for the holidays. The last several years had been brutal, my dad donated our life savings to the church and we lost any money we had. He also racked up thousands of dollars in debt and we were forced to declare bankruptcy.

We also had an oven that had been there since we moved in over 20 years ago.

I come down and my mom is screaming and swearing at my dad. He’s not even saying anything, and she finally storms off. I asked what the hell that was about and he started laughing.

I utterly lose it at this point and actually throw something at him. (a five dollar radio he got me, he was a cheap to anyone who wasn’t himself), and scream at him about how he thinks this is funny that our lives are s**t because of him.

It comes to a head when (The Golden Compass just came out and dad hated it of course because of God being killed), I scream I hope God dies.

My mom drags me out of the room at that point.

It was a helluva morning, That’s for sure.

My entire family woke up in the middle of the night with either food poisoning or stomach flu and we we all violently ill for the whole day and a few days after as well.