This is a collaborative post: The worst Christmas that I remember, certainly the coldest, was back before I had kids in December 2009. Having bought and moved into a new house in the summer, we had decided to take the front room door off, as it had been hung in an annoying and counterintuitive way whereby the open door meant you couldn’t access the light switch.
We were planning to rehang the doors but as happens with everything just hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet. Also in the room was a gaping hole where an old gas fire (which now no longer worked) was. We had shoved pillows up the chimney to stop the wind whistling down it, but it wasn’t exactly warm. Now we have both a door and a new gas fire which we installed the year after, but it wasn’t enough to save us from the weekend when the boiler went.
Never again will I miss my boiler service; it was so cold and no plumbers were available at all because it was Christmas. Even worse, I had my friend coming to stay. I still remember it clearly; wearing as many layers as possible while our hands turned blue, huddling in the front room with no door to keep any heat in, and the wind whistling down the chimney while a small and very expensive electric heater ticked over ineffectually. I would have decamped to the local Travelodge but it was too expensive.
Unable to afford a new boiler installation at the time, we lived with that dodgy, crappy old boiler for another four years until my first baby was due, at which point we gave in and got a new one. It’s one thing to be cold but to have a baby and no boiler would have been a disaster.
I asked the people of Pandora’s Pimty Bag for their stories of Christmas woe, and here are some of the worst.
When appliances go wrong
Christmas seems to be a really popular day for ovens to break and fridges to give up the ghost.
My oven decided to fail on Christmas morning so we cooked the turkey crown in the Halogen oven. It was vile and went in the bin – not even the dog would touch it. We ended up having egg and bacon with toast.
Christmas Day before last. Spent ages prepping all of my dinner, went to put the oven on and it went bang. The hob still worked so we had vegetables and fried pigs in blankets for Christmas dinner.
One year the oven door fell off entirely and my mum and sister had to take it in turns to hold it into place to cook the dinner.
I’ve got the power… Or not
Power cuts are also very popular at Christmas it seems! I imagine it’s everyone in the country boiling their kettles in sync.
Last Christmas, our main electric fuse blew at 11am. We live surrounded by businesses, so couldn’t even ask a neighbour to boil the kettle. It was freezing, I had no way to cook, and the kids couldn’t play with half their new toys. Power came back on at 3 when the emergency electrician finally appeared, by which time the kids were starving and on the verge of being feral.
Winter illnesses strike…
Christmas is the worst time to be ill but it seems everyone has been there. Here were the stories that made me feel glad I wasn’t:
Fella was in Afghanistan. Invited my mother and brother to visit for Christmas. Got everyone a cheeky day before Christmas Eve takeaway for us grown ups and my 3 toddlers….. We all ended up with food poisoning. Only had two buckets and one toilet. Let’s just say things got messy.
I was booked to join my cousin and wife for Christmas Day. Went out on the lash on Christmas Eve, woke up feeling dreadful, blamed the beer (obviously). Despite crippling gut pain, drove to their place. She was a nurse (thankfully) and they took me to West Middlesex hospital where a semi-sober surgeon whipped out my gangrenous appendix. The local rugby club were doing the rounds but had run out of party hats, so I had an inverted bed pan placed on my head.
Bad cooks and inedible food
Christmas is the only time that most people cook for more than their own family, and not everyone is up to the task:
Two years ago, we had my sister in law and the kids over for Christmas Day. Lunch was late as the cook had one too many beers, so it ended up being served 3 hours late! Just before serving the 2 year old projectile vomited everywhere. The cook then announced he’d cooked the Turkey with the giblets in, so it was inedible. Pigs in blankets & roast potatoes were burnt and he forgot to cook the red cabbage. Sister in law left taking kids with her. We continued on the booze and had profiteroles for dinner!
Sometimes it isn’t the chef’s fault though:
There was the time my Dad bought a turkey from some dodgy guy that stopped in his shop. On Christmas Eve a guy comes in with a crate covered in a plastic sheet and sealed round the edges and disappears before my Dad can say a word. He sticks it in his car. After work he gets in the car and thinks “Jesus. I must have trod in dog sh*t. That is rank” but drives home. He brings the crate in and the smell seems to accompany it… Even with his insistence it is his shoes, when he puts them outside the back door the smell persists…
My Mum opened it, went green and threw up in the sink on top of the sprouts that were being rinsed. My dad made it outside the back door before his cookies got tossed. I looked at my sister and she vomited over the kitchen floor, closely followed by myself. I have no idea what kind of creature it was (best guess – Badger) but it was rotten… Full on, crawling with maggots rotten… The house stank like a mortuary until about new years day, even though we hoyed it out the back door as soon as we were able to stop vomiting.
Pets at Christmas
Knobs, the lot of them.
Just finished decorating our living room in time for Christmas, lovely! Christmas Day going great. Hubby bought a massive bone for our Labrador. Just finished the ‘work’ of Christmas, went to sit down and the dog decides to vomit a massive pile of bone vom. Out comes the aqua vac…30 minutes later, time to relax. But no! Hubby walks through the house with a glass of red wine, trips and now I have red wine all over the new carpet and up the freshly painted yellow wall. (Slight stains still visible 4 years later!). Clean up, now to relax. Just as the dog decides to vom again.
When I was about 7 my mum took the turkey out of the oven, Siamese cat saw an opportunity and leapt on it: paws stuck to the hot fat – cat screeched and flew one way – turkey flew the other. When I asked my mum what she was going to do, she simply picked the turkey up and brushed it off, and told me “We’re going to eat it, and you’re not going to say anything”
Cat ate the cooked turkey, rolled it off the worktop & was tucking into it on the kitchen floor. I had guests for Xmas dinner. Washed the turkey, carved it and threw the manky bits away and served the rest on an antique meat plate.
Ah well, what they don’t know won’t hurt them…
And finally!
I hope they all got food poisoning!
I had spent weeks and weeks cooking and filling the chest freezer which we kept in the garage because it was huge. I went out to it on Christmas Eve to get out something to defrost and the thing was nearly empty! We were burgled in the night and all that was left was a few frozen veg. All the meat I had bought for the holiday season, gone! All the cooked meals, and even all the cakes and pastries… Gone . There isn’t much in the shops to buy on Christmas Eve afternoon!
May your Christmas be far less disastrous!