We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about their biggest and wildest Christmas fails. From family drama to food poisoning to a hungry Great Dane, here are some of their stories:
1. "About five years ago, I spent Christmas Eve day cooking a huge, elaborate standing rib roast and all the fixings. My dog, who had a weak stomach, decided it would be brilliant to get into the trash and proceeded to come over to my perfectly set table mid-meal, with my entire family present, and throw up several times. He then ran under the table with 'the runs' as we scrambled to clean up the mess. Everyone immediately left, and it went down as a pretty epic fail (although telling the story is pretty hilarious now)!"
2. "Two years ago at Christmas, my nephew made weed brownies. He gave me a brownie, advising me to take tiny bites. I passed it to my sister, who, per usual, wasn’t paying attention to what was going on. She kept eating large bites and became very sick. Sitting still on the couch, she stood up and threw up all over the floor from the weed. She missed both a white rug and couch by inches, and my other sister spilled red wine, which one of the dogs licked up from the floor. My other nephew and his partner drove her home, where she slept it off. This year at Thanksgiving, my sister fell down the stairs, spilling white wine on the wall in front of her. I wonder what will happen this year at Christmas."
—Anonymous
3. "Growing up, there was ‘power cut Christmas’ where we emergency barbecued the turkey (very, VERY dry). Another Christmas, the cats broke into next door’s garage and ate the neighbors' turkey. And, pretty much every Christmas my old grandad was alive, he would viciously dump on each and every thoughtful gift anyone got him. In the end, my mum cracked and brought him a sexy ladies’ leg toothbrush. He has dentures. He was not amused, but at least we had a good chuckle. Good times."
4. "It was my first time cooking a large Christmas dinner. I was putting all the food out as my guests were coming to the table. In one quick moment, my Great Dane grabbed the whole turkey and took it to the backyard."
—Anonymous
5. "I have a couple of memorable ones, one bad one funny. Growing up, our parents allowed us kids to have our own small tree. My dad had cut it down for us in the hills behind our house. For some reason, the tree had dried out. I guess we forgot to water it. My mom decided to get rid of it, so she put it into the fireplace to burn. It was so dry, it exploded back out on the floor. My mom picked it up and ran with it in front of her to throw it outside. She received third degree burns in her hand and arm, and first and second degree burns on her face. My dad never allowed the fireplace to be used again. 40 years later, and my mom still has scars and no strength in her right hand."
"10 years ago my sister-in-law's sponsor bought a cake for the family for Christmas — a nice Yule log. My SIL decided to have a piece. After she had taken a bite, she commented that while the cake wasn’t bad, it tasted odd. Turns out the cake was from 'The Barkery' and not a bakery. The cake was for the dog."
6. "When I met my boyfriend’s relatives the first time during Christmas, I was really touched that they gifted me with high-end toiletries. After a few weeks of using the lip balm, I got serious rashes and chemical burns around my lips. Turns out the stuff they gave me had been expired for YEARS. Apparently, recycling presents is a thing for some people."
7. "My siblings and I were still young kids, and we were really proud that we'd found a specific book we knew our parents would like for Christmas. Fast-forward to us unwrapping presents with the whole family: Our parents were extremely happy with the book, but our grandparents bought them the exact same one! You might assume they'd let it be, but our grandparents decided to make a fuss about it…a really, really big fuss. Every time we thought they might finally let it go and just enjoy our family time, they would start all over again and make everyone feel miserable (especially us kids). This went on for hours and hours until our parents got super mad at them for ruining Christmas. There was screaming and crying, and in the end, everyone was sitting in different rooms. It was the worst Christmas ever in our family."
"The whole day was stained because of a $15 book. Today we can laugh about it, but it’s still a very vivid memory."
—Anonymous
8. "It was the school's Christmas dinner. Nothing fancy, just some food, traditional bread, and a dessert. The food was great as usual, the bread was fantastic, but the dessert...it was homemade (school-made?) chocolate pudding. I did not try it, but apparently it tasted good. The next day, literally everyone who ate it got food poisoning, and every class had maybe three to five kids because nearly everyone had some of the pudding. Not sure how long you experience symptoms from food poisoning, but I'm pretty sure nobody had a great Christmas that year."
9. "On Christmas Day 2008, I was at my dad's house and said I felt dizzy. I had a massive cardiac arrest and basically died on his sofa. It was only because my dad had recently had CPR training that he saved my life. After three more cardiac arrests and a week in a coma, I woke up New Year’s Day pretty much OK. I was 24."
10. "First Christmas Eve in our new house. I opened the freezer to find red, runny goo all over the bottom. I realized the cherry pie had been stored upside down and the freezer wasn’t working. As I was cleaning up the mess, I got a call saying our dog got out of the yard. I ran in my PJs and flip-flops over half a mile to get our dog, who had rolled in something dead and who I had to carry back home. When I got back, there was smoke coming from the oven. I had forgotten to turn off the special Christmas bread my husband’s family makes each year. It was burned. I opened all the doors and aired out the house as the smoke alarm blared. All of this before 9 a.m. on Christmas Eve. I decided to go back to bed and start over."
—Anonymous
11. "One Christmas, my entire family got Norovirus. My mum was devastated because she thought she'd given us all food poisoning until she called in sick to work the next day and was told that loads of people were off sick due to a Norovirus outbreak that had started on-site. It was still terrible either way, but at least my mum knew it wasn't her fault after all!"
12. "Christmas Day 1973 will never leave me! I wanted a can of Coke at my grandmother’s house at lunchtime. My brother went and got it and decided to shake it up before he gave it to me. Of course it just exploded all over me, my mother, and the food on the table. I got shouted at and was told I had ruined Christmas, and I wasn’t spoken to for a couple of hours."
—Anonymous
13. "At age 14, I was really into being goth with a heavy dose of teenage angst. My wardrobe was almost exclusively black with a smattering of purple. My go-to bands at the time were Blink-182 and the Sisters of Mercy. All of my extended family knew how I was, and if they asked what I wanted for Christmas, I would always say I would prefer a gift voucher or anything black. My uncle's awful wife and daughter were my opposite. They were completely high maintenance and were obsessed with fashion and having perfect hair and makeup. They hated admitting that they were related to me and were mad that my parents weren't too bothered by my lifestyle. One Christmas, they bought me bright pink silk pajamas, merch for the band Take That, and hair dye remover to get rid of the black dye in my hair."
"Everyone burst out laughing when they saw my gifts. I was incredibly rude and ungrateful at the time. I handed back the gifts and asked them who they bought them for because it obviously wasn't me. Nowadays, I am a lot more gracious when accepting gifts."
14. "My grandma is notorious for giving awful gifts. One year, she gave us the Bible on VHS (the year was 2012, and no one had a VHS player by that point). She gave me a guitar for my 10th Christmas and then made me pay her back for it. She gave me a gumball machine with expired candy and kept the key to get the money out of it. She said the money I used to put in the machine was payment for the machine. But the best one was the cooking pan set she gave me with egg residue on it from when she last used it."
15. "It was Christmas 2019. I had gotten my new husband concert tickets to see one of our favorite bands in March 2020. We agreed to give each other one present on Christmas Eve. I was so excited to see his face, so I gave him the envelope. He opened it and his face fell. Then he gave me an envelope and I said, 'Oh no, you’ve booked us something on the same night.' Nope. It was tickets to the same concert. He was pissed, but I just couldn’t stop laughing. In the end, he sold his tickets and we used mine…in June 2022."
16. "One year, my parents wrapped up some catnip for our cat and put it under the tree Christmas Eve. We woke up Christmas Day to catnip everywhere and the cat high as a kite and staring at the tree. He had a great Christmas!"
17. "It was my first year at university, and I decided I wanted to cook a proper Christmas dinner for my dormmates before we all went back home. It spread around the whole building, and soon our small dinner for six turned into a party for 20-plus people. I prepped and prepped, made sure I took all diets into consideration, and decided that the one oven in our dorm wasn't enough. So I cooked simultaneously in three different dorm kitchens on one floor with no helpers because I'm a control freak. Bear in mind, I could cook well, but I'd never cooked this many dishes at once, so timing them all to be ready together was something I had no idea about."
"Being a student, I started drinking prosecco halfway through. No harm in a couple of glasses! Well, little did I know, I accidentally filled up the wrong glass, which had neat vodka in it, multiplying my couple of drinks by a few shots. Long story short, I ended up serving three practically raw chickens and a load of burned sides. I was so drunk that I couldn't put a sentence together — didn't even want to eat any of the food by that point. I remember strongly hating those chickens by the end of it. Never again."
—Anonymous
18. "We started three small fires within 10 minutes trying to light the Christmas pudding. The kitchen cupboard, wall, and hallway carpet got it, but it's okay because all fires were out within a few seconds and we all had fun with it."
19. "My ex-husband tells a story about when he was 10 or 11. He had saved up enough money to buy his mom a Christmas gift all by himself. He was too young to realize that he went to the plus-size store and bought clothing at least four sizes too big for his petite mom. She cried when she opened it, and he's never recovered."
—Anonymous
20. "I was a preteen and received a Christmas gift in the mail from a relative I didn’t know very well. It was a doll that prayed when you put its hands together. It was nice that this relative was thinking of me during the holidays, but as a tomboy atheist who was afraid of dolls, I found this gift quite...alarming. I put it in my closet so I couldn’t see it while I was sleeping, and I swear that thing started praying in the middle of the night. Long story short, the doll didn’t stick around very long."
—Anonymous
21. "My ex (33, female) and I (25, female) were dating for three years. Christmastime came, and I had been planning for months. I bought all of her presents by October and filled the area underneath our tree with gifts for her. The day before Christmas, she asked me to swing by the dollar store so she could run in. On Christmas morning. I unwrapped my presents to find a day planner and a mini spiral notebook, both from the dollar store. To make it better, she had written in days on the day planner when she would give me a massage. When those days came and I asked her, she always said no! So glad she’s in my rearview mirror. Worst gifts ever."
—Anonymous
22. "We bought the kids a mini dirt bike. My husband decided to try it. We spent Christmas day in the ER getting his broken wrist set."
23. "I had the flu one year at Christmas (I was 8 or 9), and my parents didn’t believe me somehow I still had to spend Christmas with my extended family, high fever and all. A couple times, I had to excuse myself because of the associated GI symptoms. I look very sweaty in all the pictures and everyone thought I was acting 'off.' To be fair, from my perspective, the entire room was swirling and flashing different colors. When your child says they’re sick and their symptoms are easily verifiable, believe them."
24. "My worst Christmas was probably in 2016. My family traveled from Philadelphia to visit relatives in Maryland. My aunt from Harrisburg decided to bring her annoying papillon, and the stupid thing didn’t get along with my cousin’s other two dogs. In order to pacify my irritating family, my mom, sister, and I spent HOURS in their basement with the other two dogs. We were never offered any food, drinks, or opened gifts! I was so mad!"
25. "I was about 12, so I no longer believed in Santa, but I still loved the surprise of Christmas morning and had no teenage angst yet. We all ran into the family room, where the stockings/fireplace were. We had a real fireplace, so bits of scrap paper were always around to use for kindling. The dog would play in the basket that held the kindling paper, and one scrap had landed on top of my stocking, so I tossed it aside and found my treasures. We all compared what we had gotten, and my mom asked me where the necklace was. What necklace? She said, 'The one on top in the tissue paper...' I responded, 'Oh, I didn't realize it was a gift. I tossed it there,' and I pointed to the basket of kindling. Then my dad said, 'And I placed it there...' and pointed to the fireplace. It was not salvageable."
26. And: "The Christmas I was 12, both my mom and dad came down with the stomach flu. Since my brother was 7 and my sister was 5, clearly some sort of Christmas had to happen. I spent the day watching them, wrapping presents from 'Santa' (including the ones for me), looking after my parents, and trying to get everything ready for the big Christmas dinner the next day. Luckily, once the siblings were in bed, mom felt better enough to sit on the couch and direct me in setting out the Santa gifts and finishing the preparations for cooking the next day's dinner. I was tired, frustrated, and all the magic of Christmas was gone. The next day, mom and dad were fine, the siblings were running around shrieking happily, and I spent the day throwing up with my parent's stomach flu."
Oh boy, 'tis the season! Have you ever had a Christmas day go totally wrong? Tell us your story in the comments!
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.