I remember one year when I was little my parents and relatives didn’t keep in touch about who was getting what from the lists, and I ended up getting three of the same mermaid Barbie doll from three different people. Ever sense then they’ve made sure to work it out ahead of time. :P

We lived in a small house with only one bathroom when I was a kid. One Christmas eve we all came down with the flu, the throwing up kind, all at the same time. We had to run outside and throw up if someone else was in the bathroom throwing up. Six people in one house with one bathroom.

Well for me it’s amusing-Christmas night years ago was the first time that I saw my first zombie movie; the remake for Night of the Living Dead.
I mean people don’t typically watch zombie movies on Christmas, so…

@Fly that happened once to me (well actually my sister)...My parents gave her one of those bear-dress up wooden puzzle thinamajigs and so did my grampa. But she opened my grampas’ first and then my parents were like “well we can’t let her open ours now”....
@chyna Oh Noooooo! gross!!

One holiday season my son (about 8 at the time) was being a total BRAT!! He was in that “I don’t care” mode. He refused to do school work, he fought with his sisters and got in fights at school. Nothing we did seemed to motivate him. We tried everything. We of course used the, “Santa is Watching,” and “he doesn’t bring toys to little boys who are rude and obstinate.”
He still would not respond.
After making all those threats, we knew that if we backed down, and gave him all the Christmas gifts it would be even worse. So, On Christmas morning, waiting for him, was a bag of Charcoal with a bow on it.
He just sat and pouted at first. After watching his sisters open their presents, we had a good heart to heart talk.
He was not a perfect child after that, but he did get his gifts that afternoon.

Is this restricted to Christmas? The only really bad holiday I’ve ever had, though some have been less than perfect, was my Anti-Valentines day. I was in grad school and was pulling into my driveway after a long, rather stressful day at school and noticed that an arrangement of flowers, purple irises, my favorite, had been delivered to me. They were sitting on the steps leading up to my apartment. I was alone then and figured they had to be from my parents, which was kind of pathetic to begin with, but at least someone was thinking of me, at least someone cared. Then, on the way to my apartment, I stepped in some dog shit, courtesy of my neighbors pooch. Then, when I got to my stairs and read the card on the flowers, I discovered that they were supposed to have beeen delivered to 235 W. 34th St. not 235 E. 34th St. where I lived. So after I cleaned the dog shit off of my shoe, I had to call the florist to tell them that the flowers had been delivered to the wrong address. Then they came and took my beautiful purple irises away, to be delivered to someone who, well, someone that wasn’t me. That was one bad Valentines Day. :)

I brought my girlfriend to my sister’s house for Christmas dinner.
My gf was half Japanese.
My sister went to the kitchen, and began telling a story about how she ran into someone who knew her husband. She described him as a big old chink, and began imitating his voice:“How you do-ling? Me so velly velly happy to meet you!”
Everyone at the table was quiet, with their heads down. My sister was in the kitchen laughing, continuing her racist rant, right up to the moment she walked back into the dining room, and remembered we had a guest.
She still apologizes for that.
My gf was cool about it, but I could tell she was hurt.
We dated another 6 months.

@filmfann That reminds of me Woody Allen’s hilarious scene from Annie Hall, when he visits his girlfriend’s house over Easter.

@skfinkel that reminds me of this Christmas I got a pink rabit outfit from my aunt. It sucked, but my parents saved the best present for last: a Red Rider BB gun. I loved it, but I did just what my mom said (stupid b1tch), I shot my eye out, almost. True story.

Probably it would have to be the Christmas that my brother’s stepson was in the midst of his marriage-related travails. The cops interrupted Christmas dinner to talk to him because his wife (who wasn’t there) had called them and insisted he was doing drugs (he wasn’t, she was). The week ended with the wife and her sister kidnapping their baby and taking her to Massachusetts. The Texas Attorney General frowns on Texans being kidnapped, so my brother was allowed to go to Massachusetts and kidnap the baby right back, this time with the help of the cops.

Or it could have been the Christmas when my husband and I went to visit his brother’s family in Denver. Everybody in the next room would be chatting in Japanese, invariably saying the words “Gaijin” and “Bakayarou” just as I walked into the room. At that point everyone would go dead silent and look at me. Unlike @filmfann no one ever apologized.

Note: for those who do not know, gaijin means foreigner, typically anyone who is not Japanese, like me, and bakayarou means idiot.

Thanksgiving 2009.

We had our first vegetarian Thanksgiving: Sweet potato casserole, meatless stuffing (bread, raisins, almonds, carrots, celery) cranberry sauce, steamed and sauteed green beans, creamed potatoes. Delicious.

All because Dad (me) tried to smoke the turkey on his outdoor smoker and although it was golden brown on the outside at 7pm, it was raw when we cut into it.
I finished in the oven in the kitchen and it was delicious when we at it the next day. Because it wasn’t ready until 9pm or so.,

SRM