Digging into our magic sacks to bring you history’s worst Christmas celebrations, plus our own personal tales of Holiday Hell. Feel free to share yours below…
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LASER TIME IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY: AMAZON PRIME
Christmas time what’s that? Hooray for Laser Time! Chris I hope you’re resting up after you’re whirlwind trip.
Yay! A new episode! And early to! 😀
Also, don’t listen to the grinches that bitch about Christmas Chris, I very much enjoy these episodes ^^
For me, the worst Christmas that I’ve ever had was without a doubt in 98, when I was 10 years old. Our parents had promised us that we’d celebrate Christmas that year by driving all the way from Michoacan to McAllen Texas. Which was super exciting to me because a road trip that long was something I had never experienced, and I had only visited the US once before.
However, several things happened that deterred my dad’s enthusiasm for going trough that plan, like my oldest brother crashing in the minivan we were supposed to take for the trip. So the whole trip was canceled only two days before Christmas, and no one had really planned for a celebration here.
So Christmas eve was just miserable. Everyone’s mood was down, dinner was hastily assembled and bad. And to put a cherry on top the shit cake, the only gift that I got for that Christmas was a yellow towel, a fucking yellow towel.
(To be fair, that towel had my name handcrafted in it by my mom, and it was meant to make it special… But when you’re a 10 year old, clothing of any kind is the most worthless gift you could ever receive, even if it has your name in it.)
Great episode guys. Keep it up.
My worst Christmas story was from Christmas 1997. I had a really sore throat that started on Dec 22. It got significantly worse over the next few days. It got so bad, that by Dec 24, I basically was laying on the couch and I couldn’t eat or drink anything. I remember getting a few gifts, but I was so sick that I didn’t even have the strength to play with them. Finally, the next morning, my parents decided that it was time to take me to the Emergency Room to see what was wrong with me. Turns out I had Mono, Strep Throat, and was extremely dehydrated. I spent the next 3 days in the hospital until I was past the point of the doctors thinking that my kidneys would fail. I never knew that your pee could be so dark that it blocked out any light from passing through it. It was an awful experience and a terrible Christmas Break.
Merry Christmas everybody!
My sister is not the dress wearing type and one Christmas maybe out of spite or anger my parents bought her a bunch of dresses and stared daggers at her as she opened the presents knowing her reaction would be negative, let’s just say the argument that ensued was XXXplosive! I ended up sneaking off to my room presents in hand and forced myself asleep hoping the fighting would end by the time I’d wake up.
It was sometime in the early 90’s. I had asked for a Super NES for Christmas and my parents had a pretty good track record of getting my what I asked for. Their record was so good, that I, in fact, rented some SNES games on Christmas eve to play (Super Mario World and Super Play Action Football). Along comes Christmas morning and I see the box under the tree. My father liked to hand out the presents, usually leaving the best for last. Surprisingly, he handed me the “SNES” box almost immediately. I was so stoked. I tore it open and… it was boots. Fucking shitty rubber soled winter boots. There was no SNES. My disappointment must have come through pretty heavy, as I got that SNES for my birthday in February. For years afterwards, my sister would wrap up a present in a SNES sized box for me and put it under the tree in jest.
My worst Christmas ever was in 2005. I was planning to propose to my girlfriend on Christmas Day. We were staying with her parents, and as usual, the entire thing became a cavalcade of petty bullshit. Fights ensued between her, her sister and their parents, and it was pretty much a bunch of childish crap. Needless to say, I didn’t end up proposing and had to wait until we were back at our home and it ended up being a much less romantic setting.
And the icing on the cake is that it ended up being our last Christmas together. Less than 7 months later she died. So… there’s that.
While I suppose mine aren’t as bad as some of the others mentioned already, for me these were my worst Christmas moments (kinda cheating, I know).
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Seeing as my folks had the kind of divorce that makes no one happy ever, my father decided that he had to step up his dickhead game and demanded the courts (yeah, it was one of those divorces that spanned over several courts) that he get me and my brothers for several Christmases. The court(s) evidently agreed, so for a few Christmases, my father had us for visitation rights. And boy was no one happy.
The dickhead would spend spend the holiday bitching about how we didn’t really deserve anything, and woe was him for not being able to see us more because my mother was a bitch or something, and bla bla bla. Along with that, we’d get to spend the day in his dank ass basement apartment, and when he felt it was funny (which was all the time), he’d gift one of us a garbage bag so that we could clean up his apartment.
Dinner would be at best a rotisserie chicken, and when he was feeling particularly dickish, he’d make us go and deliver presents to someone he felt was deserving of presents. On top of that, when picking us up, he’d often call the cops and complain how my bitch of a mother was denying him his visitation rights.
We were real popular with the precinct as you could imagine.
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For a singular Christmas however, it would have to be the one from four or so years ago. It was my first Christmas away from my family, I was in a new neighborhood, and I was sick as shit. To make matter worse, my boyfriend is Jewish, and grew up resenting the hell out of Christmas due to how in your face it had gotten, so I was not allowed to decorate or anything, and he spent the day away with his friends.
I spent most of the day in bed, completely miserable. I tried to cheer myself up with Christmas music, but the the cheer of the music only made things worse, causing me to sob uncontrollably.
Eventually, I had to go out to get some soup, and what did I run into but a bunch of carolers. That put me almost to the edge as I begrudgingly continued to the store, when a tree salesman caught sight of me and asked “What’s wrong with you?”. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that I didn’t walk off into traffic.
At some point I get my soup without killing myself, and get back home. Later, the boyfriend returns, and gets mad at me because of how upset I had gotten over ‘some stupid holiday’.
My worst Christmas was definitely my junior year of high school. I had already been in a shitty, “depressed” mood for a lot of the year, but I thought things were going better once I started dating my first real girlfriend around the end of that November. Naturally, the day before Christmas break she dumped me out of the blue. I spent that break basically pent up in my house, only going out for the usual family crap one has to do that time of year, and I wasn’t seeing much of my friends. I’d started getting somewhat of an anxiety problem during that school year and this kind of tipped me over. Needless to say the factors of 1) being a shitty hormonal 16 year old, 2) getting dumped for the first time and 3) the general seasonal depression of being alone at the holidays made it a really shitty time, and beyond being my worst Christmas by far, it was part of the worst time of my life in general I’d say. Compared to some others’ shitty Christmases mine is still pretty okay so I’m just gonna say I’m lucky. Then again, I’m still in University so who knows how shitty some year could be…
some of the best episodes ever of any LT/TDar are personal stories from you guys. can’t get enough.
Completely agree
Just last year my Grandmother actually had the balls to get me Under Siege on VHS for Christmas. Now DVD has been out for like 15 years so she has no excuse on not getting it on DVD or at least Laserdisc. Also where in the hell did she find a sealed VHS copy of this film? Not sure how to retaliate for this transgression? Closest thing I can think of is a vintage 1930 flip book of a chick with a hula hoop. Possibly topless for good measure.
My mom screamed at us and broke a bottle of wine, a gift from my dad, so we hid in the basement. “TELL YOUR DAD I DONT NEED ANY FUCKING PRESENT FROM HIM”
Back when I was a wee middle school lad in the final days pre-Y2K we were all gathered around the Christmas tree having just opened all our presents. Suddenly our three year old cat Banshee wanders into the room, runs around the couch playing with our dog and having a jolly old time.
He then screamed and dropped dead of a heart attack.
Still not as awkward as the time my sisters came into my room to tell me the dog died on April Fools day and I find out when I go downstairs it wasn’t a joke. Yeah.
I can’t be alone in feeling like this episode was rather touching.
Thanks for sharing your stories, both good and bad, LT Crew!
As a somewhat spoiled, white, white guilt, milk toast kind of human being.. I can’t say I had a real shitty Christmas. There was however ONE YEAR, where my father mistakenly purchased me Left 4 Dead 2 and Brutal Legend for the PS3 instead of the 360.
I had to wait a WHOLE DAY before I could return them.
My worst Christmas came in 2006 when I spent most of December in my Mother’s home country of Northern Ireland. This was also the time when I forgot the term “Balanced Diet” and ate so much shitty food. This caused me to be constipated for pretty much all of the trip. Not only did I have to combat with both jet lag and the harsh winter cold (I’m from Australia where it’s hot as fuck in December) but I also had to combat with my bowls It was a shitty Christmas because of my lack of shitting. Though I did get a PSP and Smackdown vs Raw 07 for Christmas.
I spent Christmas in Ireland last year and actually enjoyed it. Which is ironic and kinda sadistic since my Aunt had passed away earlier that year. Maybe the fact that I got to go to Vegas and Disneyland after Ireland helped ease that pain.
You gotta keep doing Christmas episodes, Chris! Fuck those Christmas haters!
My worst Christmas was 2003. I had just joined the Army and my first post was in Uijeongbu, Korea, at Camp Red Cloud. When Christmas rolled around, my division’s rules only allowed for a certain percentage of any office to go on leave at a time, and I wound up staying put. I’d never spent Christmas away from home before, and the whole camp was pretty much shut down that morning.
I woke up Christmas morning in my barracks room, walked off post into the city for a bit and found a little convenience store that was open. I bought the biggest thing of soju (kind of the Korean version of sake) I could find, and went to the abandoned soccer stadium that had been built for the Olympics in the 1980s. I sat in the middle of the pitch and sadly drank my soju and wished I was back home. Ho, ho, ho.
I don’t really have a “worst” christmas, but none of them have been very good. I never do anything and then I get slightly more depressed.
When my Stepdad came back after leaving after being exposed by my mom as cheating on her and seeing my mom desperately cling to him lovingly wanting everything to be alright again until they finally broke apart which lead to her downward spiral of going out to leave me to watch my little bros, drinking, constantly smoking and a general uncaring attitude which would eventually lead to us losing our house.
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Also my little bro was sick that day.
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Merry Christmas guys.
😀
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Also just wanna say A Christmas Story is shit and Jingle all The Way rules.
I live in kentucky…….
last year, for 5 freezing cold days, the power was out in my apartment. a nasty ice storm hit Toronto and a lot of people were left without power for Christmas. in my case this means the water was out as well. if I needed to take a shit that meant I walk down 16 floors to the laundry room and pray the public toilet is still in a state to actually sit on. we’ve all taken candle lit poops before I’m sure, but try doing that while hovering over a toilet ruined by all the other poor souls in my building that had the same idea.
as if by some magic, we returned from shopping on Christmas Eve to a well lit building, just in time to wrap presents and watch Christmas Vacation with the bottle of expensive bourbon I’d treated myself to for all the bullshit.
Wolverine Origin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_(comics)) taught me about Boxing Day.
Basically its like you guys said. The wealthy “upstairs” people switched places with the downstairs people and cooked / gave gifts to their servants.
So Kentucky is not all terrible, just some of the roads and people are though. Just think California has some crappy places too like Stockton.Just remember the center is not always best.
i was goddamn delighted to hear you use those Secret of Mana tracks as the bed music…….those songs always remind me of xmas in a yuge way……….got it for xmas and played the shit out of it all winter as a kid!
peace (on earth)