Ruined christmases?

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.