Christmas gone wrong - the memories you'd like to forget

We went to visit my parents over Christmas. My father is dealing with kidney cancer and heart problems, so he spent Christmas in the hospital, which is ironic because my mother was in the hospital last Christmas for an intestinal blockage. Oh, well.

Anyway, they live in Navarre Beach, which is halfway between Pensacola and Ft. Walton, for those of you who know your gulf coast geography, and while we were there, my mother told me a story from her childhood that I'd never heard before. After hearing this story, I will give her a free pass for the rest of her life to anything she says or does that seems a little off - she's earned it.

My mother was an only child, and her parents were farmers. She grew up during the Great Depression, and although the family wasn't rich by any means, they weren't destitute, either. They got by, and they did all right. Naturally, being an only child, her father spoiled her pretty badly, and the year she turned six, he gave her a horse and buggy for Christmas.

She said it was the whole thing - a horse, a painted two-wheel buggy, the harness, the crop, and a little outfit for her to wear. It was a little girl's dream, and it was a total surprise. She said on Christmas morning (this would have been 1939), they told her that her Christmas present was out in the barn, and she should run out to see it. So, she went flying out the door to see what Santa Claus had brought her, with both her parents close behind her.

When she flung open the barn door, the first thing she saw was a dead horse.

Her father had picked up the horse the day before (Christmas Eve), and put him in the barn that evening. He didn't even survive through the night. There was the little buggy and the outfit and everything, plus a dead horse.

My God. How can you even grow up to be functional after something like that? I don't know how she managed to refrain from throwing that story back at us for all those years we complained about all our petty stuff. There would have been no possible comeback at all:

"I wanted a 10-speed bike for Christmas and I got this stupid 3-speed instead."
"Yeah, well it's better than the DEAD HORSE I got. Merry fucking Christmas."

And, of course, after thinking about her story, I immediately thought, "TFP thread." I know we must have some rotten Christmas memories out there. Let's put them all in here and try to laugh about them.

 

This thread is done before it starts. No one can top your story warrrreagl. Thanks for the chuckle this morning, yes I am a sick bastard.

 

When my parent's split up somewhere down the road my mom took four of us without my Dad's permission.
She was an alcoholic and so was my stepfather, and on top of that he was an abuser.

So Christmas at our house back then always ended with cops in the living room.
The worst one was when they were fighting and my mom pulled a huge butcher knife on my stepfather. He knocked her to the ground and started to kick her taking the knife out of her hand.
Well my three sisters and I weren't taking it anymore, so my middle sister jumped on his back choking him, I grab the knife and ran.
The other two jumped on top of the pile, all crashing to the floor, while I thought about putting that knife right threw his heart.
I was in my teens and really could have killed him. I called the police on him and paid dearly a few months after that, paybacks you know.

 

No aweful Christmas stories here, but warrrreagl, that was a great (terrible) story.

 

Martian, your descriptions are almost too good. Wow. And ouch.

I appreciate the responses to my mother's dead horse story, including Martian's funny "beating a dead horse" reference. That was awesome. There's actually an epilogue to her story (albeit not Christmas-related), and it all completely blows me away as to how my parents' generation took in all they had to survive in perfect stride.

Anyway, after that Christmas morning tragedy and shock, my grandfather kept looking to buy another horse for her, but he was never satisfied with the horses he saw, because he wanted to make sure it was gentle enough for his little girl. Finally, when she was 10, he found one. That summer (it would have been the summer of '43), she rode with him to see her new horse as he picked it up. He'd also bought a mule from the same guy along with the new horse. However, when they were loading the two animals in the trailer, the horse got spooked and kicked the mule. The mule didn't like being kicked, so it kicked her father in the face. It knocked his nose off his face. Not broken. Not smashed. Off. His. Face. She said it was dangling off of one cheek by some skin with his skeletal nostrils wide open and blood gushing everywhere. They rushed him to a doctor, who was able to sew his nose back onto his face. "But," she said matter-of-factly, "he always did have sinus trouble after that."

Fucking DUH.

Needless to say, he did not keep the horse that caused him to lose his nose.

The next time he was able to find another horse for her, she was 12. She said she LOVED that horse. It was exactly what she'd always wanted, and she rode the hell out of it - for two months. That was when her father got a new job in the City of Tuskegee, and they had to leave the farm and move into town. They bought a house in a neighborhood, and she tried to bring her horse with her, but there wasn't any way they could keep a horse in town in a neighborhood. They had to get rid of it, and she never got another horse after that.

It humbles me to think of the things I've always thought of as hard times for me. That whole generation was an amazing group of people all around the world, and they made so much out of so little. It's a little ridiculous to hear all of the little petty whiney things people complain about now compared to that. Wow. I understand a lot more now about why my father used to look at me like I was the biggest pussy he'd ever seen.

EDIT: About 20 years ago, I read something about cool gifts, and it said to find a photo of your parents when they were young, have the photo retouched and restored, frame it, and gift it to them. I found one for my mother that I thought was cool, and I had the whole process completed. She cried her eyes out when I gave it to her for her birthday 20 years ago, and that framed photo still hangs on her bedroom wall.

It was an old black-and-white snapshot of my 12-year old mother astride that beloved horse. I never knew until last week why she loved that photo so much.

 

Incredible warrrreagl, just incredible!

 

I got my sister to scan the photo and send it to me, and here it is. I asked my mother what she named the horse, thinking it would be something dashing and aggressive, like "Thunderheart," or "Windrunner," or maybe something cute, like "Syrup," or "Sweetie."

Nope.

She named the horse "Bob."

 

Bob - just took this to an entirely new level.