During the holiday season, families look forward to gathering around the fireplace, candy canes in hand, sharing stories of Christmases past, or sitting below the tree reading Twas the Night Before Christmas. However, such picturesque Christmas nights find life only in children’s picture books, ABC Family movies, or the chocolate filled images adorning advent calendars. As past experiences reveal, some Christmases are never as ideal as anticipated.

 

 

“My mom spent all day making this elaborate chicken dish that was the main course for dinner. At time for dinner, she was carrying the platter to the table and all the little cousins were running into the dining room. One of the cousins knocked the dish out of my mom’s hand and it spilled all over the floor. We just ordered pizza.”

– Leigh Adelizzi ‘15

 

“One Christmas, Santa got my brother and our cousins electric scooters. They opened them on Christmas morning and took them straight out onto the street in our neighborhood. After literally two minutes, they crashed into one of our neighbor’s brick fences one after the other. It was very funny and they all had to get stitches in their foreheads.  All three of them had little Harry Potter scars.  It was very, very comical.”

– Cluny McPherson ‘13

 

“After hours of decorating our Christmas tree our dog ran into it and the tree fell over, breaking all our ornaments.  This just didn’t happen one year, it happened three years in a row, so we had to buy new ornaments three years in a row.” – Jill Barton ‘12

 

“One time I almost set the house on fire because the Christmas cookies I was making started burning and my mom started freaking out.  Smoke filled the house and the fire department came.” Jordan Marinchak ‘12

 

“We have a huge Christmas Eve party for like 50 people and our family and one year all of my siblings got the chicken pox. Oh no!” – Angela Saggiomo ‘12

 

“When I was five years old I got food poisoning and at five in the morning I ran downstairs and I saw Santa putting presents under the tree. Turns out it was my mom.” – Alex McCormick ‘12

 

“One time I had chicken pox on Christmas and I was isolated in my room.  My family had to bring my presents up to me.” – Mimi McCann ‘13

 

“Every Christmas is a disaster.” – Mike Pettit ‘12

 

“When I was 12, I had a cat named Pumpkin. Over the Christmas holiday, he ate an entire bag of tinsel and we were reminded of Christmas well into the New Year.”

– Mrs. Perkins

 

“My family went out to eat one year a few days before Christmas and Megan and my dad ordered shrimp. They both got food poisoning and were sick for Christmas.”

-Maria Kilcullen ‘15

 

“One Christmas when I was five I was listening to ‘Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree’ and I decided to actually dance around my tree. In the midst of my rocking around my own tree, I knocked the entire tree down and all the ornaments broke.”

– James Costalas ’13

 

“A couple years ago, my family and I went out to cut down a tree for Christmas.  After we had chosen our tree we began to cut it down and it fell on top of us.”

– Sabrina Palone ‘15

 

“My family was eating lunch one Christmas and we heard something fall to the ground. Then we all saw one little ornament rolling out of the room and then looked up at the tree and saw two glowing eyes at the top of the Christmas tree. We realized it was our cat that climbed the tree. A tree and an animal are just asking for trouble.”

-Dr. Row

 

“Last Christmas, I spent hours making a homemade batch of Christmas cookies.  Then my dog ate the entire batch. He got sick all over the kitchen.”

– Dr. Forste-Grupp

 

“I was sitting in my living room on Christmas day with my Grandfather and little cousins. My grandpa was sitting on the couch playing around with his false teeth with his tongue. One of my little cousins started to try and push his teeth out with his tongue, but obviously he couldn’t because he didn’t have false teeth. Oh the Martin family.”

– Nyazia Martin ‘12

 

“Way back when my kids were little, I wore a red, fuzzy bath robe at Christmastime. My kids used to put their stockings on their beds. On Christmas Eve night I was walking in my daughter’s room about to fill her stocking and she was half asleep and saw me filling her stocking. The next morning I was saved because she thought it was Santa because of my red robe.”

– Dr. Rubin