“DAAAAAD!! The toilet’s flooding and the garage is full of poo!!”
“Sorry what was that David? What’s poo?”
“THERE’S F*CKING SH*T EVERYWHERE!”
That right there is how my Christmas Day started.
My family and I go home to Tasmania for Christmas every year, and this year was no exception.
Brothers and sister, uncles and aunties, second cousins and in-laws come from around Australia to squish into my Pop’s old, red brick two-storey house. It’s really quite lovely.
Well, it would be if we were normal. Sane, even. But we’re not, hence why you’re here reading about how my Christmas Day was unequivocally worse than yours.
So, back to the garage full of sh*t.
It all started at 3am when my dad got up to use the loo. Being the considerate person he is, dad decided to use the downstairs bathroom so as not to wake anyone up. Only when he got to the bottom of the stairs, he felt something… moist underfoot on the garage floor. By underfoot, I mean his BARE FEET.
Then came the yelling.
Turns out Pop’s decades old plumbing was not at all up to the task of facilitating everyone’s, erm, waste. Having not one, but TWO irritable bowel sufferers who ate three kilos of cherries in one sitting (handy hint – don’t eat three kilos of cherries in one sitting) in the house didn’t help.
Sadly, the plumber was enjoying a lovely Christmas breakfast with his family and couldn't make it out to unblock the situation until 10:30am, leaving us with no choice but to trek it to the neighbours every time nature called.
And when the plumber finally did show up, it took him all of three seconds to shove a plunger in there and fix the problem, which he described as a 'women's issue' because of the excess toilet paper stuck in the pipes. That wisdom set Pop back $500.
Next came Christmas Day lunch. All the parents thought having Christmas lunch out this year would be a fab idea, so at midday we arrived at a local establishment.
Keep in mind, this is taking place in Tasmania. Just for context's sake.
At 29, I was officially the youngest human in the dining hall by almost half a century. On the plus side, it was very easy to manoeuvre around to get the buffet and nab the crunchy potatoes because the competition was so slow off the mark.
That said, the serving staff were also of the same 'vintage' as most of the patrons, meaning it took a very long time to get drinks from the bar. So long, all of us, including my 84-year-old Pop started double parking the XXXX Golds.
Side note - We're also 97 per cent sure our table's waitress was high on something, because she kept taking our plates away, even when we were still four slices of turkey and a bread roll away from being done.
At this stage, things were looking up. No one had died during lunch, the food was pretty good and we had Christmas pudding AND chocolate mousse for dessert. But of course, we hadn't made it to the in-law's yet.
That's when the day went from unfortunate to horrendous. And not in a funny, 'we'll laugh about this later' kind of way either.
LISTEN: The ladies from Mamamia Out Loud help out a listener with a similarly annoying Christmas Day dilemma (post continues after audio...)
I'll start with 'Uncle John', who it's worth mentioning is precisely no one's uncle, but shows up to my boyfriend's mum's afternoon tea every year.
From me and my 26-year-old sister, to our 42-year-old auntie and my boyfriend's 78-year-old nanna, uncle John made a pass at all of us.
"How's Sydney going daaaaaarrrllll," he slurred, placing a damp kiss just that bit too close to my lips and a firm hand on my bum. There it stayed, grabbing me, until I pretended I needed the toilet. He also 'accidentally' flicked my auntie's nipple, as if that's actually a thing people genuinely do.
Aside from making every woman in the room, and my primary school-aged brother feel extremely uncomfortable, he also stole my cousin's bundy and rum cans from the esky because he's too stingy to bring his own alcohol.
But by far the worse part of the whole day came when my uncle's step-mum, with a bottle and a half of red wine under her belt, wandered over to my second cousin, Christy, who'd been released from the eating disorder ward where she's being treated for anorexia to spend Christmas with her family.
"Well, you don't look as skinny as I thought you'd be at all," she told her, even though she still had her feeding tube up her nose.
We were all lost for words. Christy had to be taken back to hospital she was that upset.
So, yeah. That was my Christmas Day. Still think yours was bad?
Didn't think so.
Do you have a Christmas Day horror story? Are you glad it's all over for another year?
Top Comments
This is meant to be a joke piece, right?
At least your none of your family members were told they may have cancer on Christmas Day like my 26 son was told. Now that does make Christmas suck big time.