8 times the Christmas dinner was truly enough to make you cry
Christmas dinner really doesn’t always consist of cheerful Christmas tunes, festive glitter dresses, and perfectly cooked venison steaks. Sometimes things happen that are just downright enough to make you cry. The stories below certainly prove that.
Rudy: ‘My mother-in-law finds it rather challenging that I’m vegetarian. And that leads to some rather… creative solutions, which sometimes seem more like the expression of a panic attack than a well-thought-out plan. One time, for example, I was served Chicken Tonight during Christmas dinner, but without the chicken. Another great idea: a veggie satay burger with cranberry sauce. It goes wonderfully with the venison steak served to the rest of the non-vegetarian guests, but not with this meat substitute, I can tell you that. I’m so curious to see what she’s come up with for me this year.’
Coco: ‘I once had a Christmas dinner where I was served not one, not two, but three thick veal croquettes as a starter. After that, I was cheerfully presented with a main course and dessert as well. You can imagine that after eating three thick croquettes, there was absolutely no way I could get any of it down.’
Carmen: ‘My mother once nearly choked on a fish bone during Christmas dinner. It was so bizarrely terrifying that I never ate carp at Christmas again—and we’d been eating it during the holidays for an extremely long time.’
Anne: ‘I grew up in South Africa, on a farm. At some point, my family started living all over the place—as happens during certain phases of life—but one year we all returned to the farm for Christmas. It was a busy affair: not only was our family there, but also all our cousins and even friends from the Netherlands. My mother had set an enormous table and prepared delicious food. Everything was lovely and wonderful until, at one point, I looked down and saw the head of an ENORMOUS snake staring at me. I have an extreme fear of snakes, so I went completely crazy. I broke the chair in half, ran over everyone sitting at the table, and cried hysterically. Later, we went to the beach, where my nephew jokingly said to someone, “Watch out for that snake on your foot!” That person must have developed post-traumatic stress disorder, because a few minutes later he had a stroke. You can imagine there were a LOT of mental breakdowns that day.’
Wieke: ‘When I was 14 and my brother was 20, we celebrated Christmas at my aunt and uncle’s house. My aunt had made pasta with creamed spinach, served with raw salmon. The reasoning behind it was: this is a student meal and my brother is a student. Side note: I’m allergic to fish. So that year, the main course of my Christmas dinner consisted of dry spaghetti. Also bizarre: my parents and brother were jealous of my dish. Why remains a mystery to me.’
Sabina: ‘WHO washed all the tea-light holders and candleholders in the sink the day before Christmas and rinsed the melted candle wax down the drain? Thank you, husband—spent the entire afternoon with stepson, a drain snake, a bucket of hot water, and fondue forks lying in a kitchen cabinet trying to unclog the whole thing. Kitchen floor soaking wet, everything stinking (just try loosening one of those P-traps) and HOUUURS behind schedule for Christmas dinner. The first guests arrived while we were mopping up the last puddles.’
Sharon: ‘Having a gourmet dinner while you’re going through a divorce, but still getting together for Christmas with everyone for the sake of the children, is not a good idea. It is educational, though. So from a young age I learned that dead chicken can still fly, that gourmetten (apart from the smell and the damn fiddling around with little pans) is actually never a good idea, and that you should only celebrate parties with people you genuinely like. Hopefully you managed that this year.’
Delilah: ‘Thirteen years ago. Going into central London on Boxing Day (the second day of Christmas) is not recommended anyway because of the hysterical crowds, but I absolutely had to visit the first Whole Foods (an American, ridiculously expensive organic supermarket chain) on—back then—European soil. I immediately got a large cup of lentil soup from the soup bar and walked through the store with it, which felt very American, even though it wasn’t cola or coffee. I hadn’t even finished the last sip/bite when it all came back up, and I had no choice but to cough it back up into the same cup. It looked exactly the same, which I found rather interesting. Once I got home in the Netherlands, I peed on a stick just to be sure: yep, pregnant.’
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