Ruined christmases?

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

Peist2007 wrote: »

Have read you tell the above before Lexie and i feel for your plight. However, my conclusion with your situation was that you were unlucky and ended up going out with a real bad egg. Irregardless of drugs taken.

A bigger sample size is needed than one. Put 100 drunks in a room and 100 stoners in the room next door and see where the trouble happens. Just my 10 cents but dont want to derail this thread so am happy to leave it there.

Surely that arguement can be argued for alcohol too though. Assholes will be assholes regardless of drink taken or not. You can't turn around and say "alcohol makes people assholes, and aggressive" and then when told about weed doing the same thing, dismiss it as "well it wasn't the weed they were just an asshole anyway".

steddyeddy

Vote 4 Pedro wrote: »

I've had a few really shi!y Christmases, I was "brought up" in care / children's homes from a very young age,
At Christmas we would all have to put our best cloths on, get a good wash and try look presentable for the Christmas visitors.. they would be some local charity or middle aged "do gooders"
We were made to stand in a line and the visitors would walk down the line talk a little, wish you a merry Christmas and give you a present, this would be the only present you would get so you would be very grateful to them,
Then when the visit was over the staff would come and take the best of the gifts for themselves and them the bullies would take what was left and you would be left with fook-all.
The next Christmases were all the same until I left

Hey Pedro I deal with kids in such situations. Can you Pm me the name of the home and Ill make sure none of them work near kids again.

cloud493

Well that was in the 70s in the UK :P

RainyDay

Vote 4 Pedro wrote: »

Hi RainDay,
It was the Seventy's mostly and it was in Leeds in the UK.
I got out of the system when I was 14, after 10 years in that hell hole I hated it, and Christmas was no different, I don't have any good Christmas memory's as a child for obvious reasons
but then when I was out that place I was on my own for a few years and spent Christmas in a groty bedsit but I got a job and started to live my life as I wanted to and things started to get better,
I met my now wife at 19 and married in 1989. still happily married and now have 2 kids and although I never really fully enjoy Christmas I am able to make a good effort so my kids can enjoy it and that makes all the difference

Thanks, I'm relieved to hear that it is not in present day. Well done on sorting things out for yourself, and making a good Christmas for your kids.

blaze1

Feel for all the posters who had trouble when they were young with parents who drink. Mine were similar, not necessarily aroud xmas, not sure if thats been blocked out tbh.

Vote 4 Pedro

cloud493 wrote: »

Well that was in the 70s in the UK :P

It does not matter where it or when it was.
I was in the home from 3 to 14 years, it can really mess you up, can you imagine your kids growing up without any love or any affection, never even a cuddle, it was a sh!t hole. I came out of it OK but many didn't,
It takes time to adjust into some sort of normal life after growing up like that.
I'm not saying it was the worst either as I'm sure they were many who had it a lot tougher than I did. When I met my wife who is Irish after a few years we moved over here to Ireland and her family is now my family, the only family I've ever had.

cloud493

No sorry I didn't mean it diminishes the impact, of course not. I meant it would probably be somewhat difficult for steddyeddy to track any of the guilty down.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

Vote 4 Pedro wrote: »

It does not matter where it or when it was.
I was in the home from 3 to 14 years, it can really mess you up, can you imagine your kids growing up without any love or any affection, never even a cuddle, it was a sh!t hole. I came out of it OK but many didn't,
It takes time to adjust into some sort of normal life after growing up like that.
I'm not saying it was the worst either as I'm sure they were many who had it a lot tougher than I did. When I met my wife who is Irish after a few years we moved over here to Ireland and her family is now my family, the only family I've ever had.

I know youre grown up with a family and are doing well now, but I feel sad for that child you were. i hope the rest of your life will be super happy and full of love

Vote 4 Pedro

cloud493 wrote: »

No sorry I didn't mean it diminishes the impact, of course not. I meant it would probably be somewhat difficult for steddyeddy to track any of the guilty down.

OK, I'm sorry for the rant..I thought you were been sarcastic,
their is no guilty to track down, that's just how it was back then.

KungPao

One year our grandad made a mess of the turkey - cooked it with the bag of giblets still inside. Then he insisted on watching the sound of music which I hate,so had to go out with my brother for a few drinks.

Another year our long long lost father suddenly showed up on Christmas. We let him stay a few nights, but he was acting like he owned the place and made the atmosphere quite toxic. We was glad when we got shot of him.

cloud493

KungPao wrote: »

One year our grandad made a mess of the turkey - cooked it with the bag of giblets still inside. Then he insisted on watching the sound of music which I hate,so had to go out with my brother for a few drinks.

Another year our long long lost father suddenly showed up on Christmas. We let him stay a few nights, but he was acting like he owned the place and made the atmosphere quite toxic. We was glad when we got shot of him.

awright rodders?

iguana

Such sad posts on this thread but I can't help but hope that somewhere there are people reading these stories and hardening their resolve to maintain a necessary sobriety or maintain a separation from an alcoholic spouse for the sake of their children. No child should have to live like that because of a parent's behavior.

branie2

KungPao wrote: »

One year our grandad made a mess of the turkey - cooked it with the bag of giblets still inside. Then he insisted on watching the sound of music which I hate,so had to go out with my brother for a few drinks.

Another year our long long lost father suddenly showed up on Christmas. We let him stay a few nights, but he was acting like he owned the place and made the atmosphere quite toxic. We was glad when we got shot of him.

There was also a circus on the telly; I hate circuses!

cloud493

I genuinely think (my dad especially did plenty worst things over my childhood) that you have to block some of these things out. At the very least, not let it bother you. If you spent all your time dwelling on it, you just wouldn't function.

@pedro - I'm really glad you found that family and that life for yourself, you deserve it

OldNotWIse

We stayed with my granny one year for Christmas. She didn't allow us to see what Santa had left until after breakfast and mass. Kind of lost the moment.

steddyeddy

Vote 4 Pedro wrote: »

OK, I'm sorry for the rant..I thought you were been sarcastic,
their is no guilty to track down, that's just how it was back then.
When I meet my wife who is Irish, as I had no family ties we move to Ireland and have lived here a long time now, her family is now my family, the only family I've ever had.

Pedro I'm very happy things turned out well for you. You're a remarkable person.

Chloris

Definitely Liam Clancy, I heard you can't throw a rock through an orphanage window without clattering one of his illegitimate sprogs.

Chloris

Chloris wrote:

Definitely Liam Clancy, I heard you can't throw a rock through an orphanage window without clattering one of his illegitimate sprogs.

That was in relation to a post at at the very beginning of the thread about someone whose biological father was a well known musician.

As for all the sad family stuff, we had plenty of that. My younger brother has a brain injury and my parents are very stubborn people, not a good combination at Christmas when there's so much stupid pressure to do normal things. My older siblings have all kinds of stopped bothering to come home because it's usually fairly traumatic.

I try to spend the day with my boyfriend's lovely family but they're so fricking normal and secure that I usually become more upset inside and resentful of their happiness as a unit... I spent about six hours of Christmas day alone this year, I'd say it was longer last year.

steddyeddy

Chloris wrote: »

That was in relation to a post at at the very beginning of the thread about someone whose biological father was a well known musician.

As for all the sad family stuff, we had plenty of that. My younger brother has a brain injury and my parents are very stubborn people, not a good combination at Christmas when there's so much stupid pressure to do normal things. My older siblings have all kinds of stopped bothering to come home because it's usually fairly traumatic.

I try to spend the day with my boyfriend's lovely family but they're so fricking normal and secure that I usually become more upset inside and resentful of their happiness as a unit... I spent about six hours of Christmas day alone this year, I'd say it was longer last year.

Sorry Chloris .

Gongoozler

Had quite a few bad ones when I was small, with the pressure mam would put herself under to have all the food right and everything perfect, she'd end up screaming at everyone in the end. That was most Christmases afair.

This Christmas was pretty bad. Spent a couple of days with my sister, who has taken to the same habits. Except she doesn't scream at you, she ignores you and bitches about you in the next room. I dared to comment on one of the kids having chocolate right before dinner (when at the best of times he won't eat dinner anyway) and I was ignored for the next 24 hours. I said fcuk that, and decided to head back home, to go to my boyfriends where not only do they talk to me but actually like talking to me. On the way out she told me to not bother coming back again. Also it was pointed out to me that no one invited me. So yeah that was ****. I wasn't planning on going back anyway, but the fact that she's abusing her kids almost as badly as we were (mentally) as kids is something I didn't know if I wanted to get away from or be around in future. The only reason I stayed in contact was for the children, but it's not worth the ****ness I have to deal with.

Vote 4 Pedro

@Gongoozler
Sorry that sounds like a total nightmare, mental torture and your better off away from it, try look forward and be with people who care about you, sh!t like that will do you no good

OldNotWIse

26sdrawkcab wrote: »

I grew up with an alcoholic father and my parents fought pretty much non-stop for my entire childhood but it was always worse at Christmas. They used to wreck the place, pull down the decorations (that's if any were put up in the first place), break presents throwing them around the place etc etc, I won't go into too much detail.
Basically from age 0-18, until I moved out, Christmases were pretty horrible.
One Christmas that sticks out in my head was when I was 3 or 4. If my father thought he was in big trouble with my mother he'd use one of us as a barrier, thinking she'd go easier on him if we were there, never worked. This particular night they were raging away at each other and I came downstairs and my father grabbed me and put me sitting on his lap. I was roaring crying of course. My mother threw an ashtray at him and it hit me in the face. It was an old fashioned really heavy glass ashtray like this - http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mcFEb8y0sW7LpSMIHsb-CdA.jpg
I still have a noticeable scar between my lip and my nose and my nose is slightly crooked.

I never ever visit my parents at Christmastime. There's a few different reasons for that. They don't understand of course and just think I'm being awkward, there's never been any acknowledgment of how unacceptable their carry on was. I'm 27 now and I still find Christmas hard sometimes just thinking about all my childhood Christmases.
I go all out at Christmas now and my husband makes sure it's amazing because he knows why I need it to be like that now. I have Christmas traditions that probably seem childish and stupid to some people but it's just the way it has to be now. I felt like there were years where we didn't even celebrate Christmas when I was younger, we may have had decorations up and eaten a Christmas dinner but you were just on edge and couldn't enjoy any of it properly so it just went by unnoticed.

I feel really sad for the little child that you were, and want to be able to reach into the past and pull her out and keep her safe Sounds like you have a wonderful hubby so enjoy making up for the sh.it Christmasses!

Rubberchikken

Probably the christmas morning my brother called to tell me our mother had died earlier that morning in her sleep.

It hasn't ruined christmas, life goes on, but christmas that year is a blank.