Worst Christmas Ever

CHRISTMAS DAY, 1866.

        I woke up, my head pounding. I didn’t open my eyes, sure someone had glued them shut, it seemed like too much effort. So I lay there, listening to my heartbeat pound through my temples. Quick, irregular, sending waves of nausea through my nerves, making my stomach lurch. I took a deep breath, trying to slow the rhythm, trying to calm my churning guts. The intake of breath brought up the smell of half-digested wine, the alcohol burning my throat and nose.

        Light burst through my closed eyelids and seared the inside of my brain. Someone had opened the heavy drapes, letting in a ray of sunlight. I finally squinted my eyes open in order to see which monster had done this to me. The intruder in my chambers approached the bed; her face – for I could see that she was female – was in the shadows. It was only when she was a mere foot from me that I recognized the pale, blue-eyed visage: my mother.

        She sat down next to me and put a gentle hand on my cheek.

        “Are you awake Charles?” she said softly.

        “Barely,” I croaked.

        She stroked my face once more, than whacked me on the head.

        “Good!” she said, her tone much harsher. “Now, get up, put on something decent, and proceed to the dining room for Christmas lunch. Everybody is already there waiting. And after what you did last night, your father is not best pleased. He will be having words with you before we dine. Now, make haste.”

        With those words, she rose and strode from the room.

        I sat up gingerly, my head still pounding. Obviously, I had indulged in too much wine last night. There had been a gathering to celebrate the birth of Jesus, I remembered that much. I recalled greeting the guests: Father’s friend Randolph, with whom he often went hunting, his wife Mary, their daughter Victoria. Who else had been there? My favourite cousin Cassandra, with her husband William and their two little sons, Edward and Percy. Had I said anything to them? I couldn’t recall.

        I decided the best thing to do was to go down to Christmas lunch. I dressed carefully, so as to be presentable. I did a bang up job, I thought. Aside from the bloodshot eyes, I seemed in good health. The mop of dark hair fell elegantly over my blue eyes. I dressed in a dark suit, given to me by my father last year, on my eighteenth. I looked good, even if I did say so myself.

        The dining room table was full of people. As I entered, everyone stopped talking and looked over at me. The silence was poignant. I smiled easily at everyone.

        “Merry Christmas,” I said. Nobody answered. I looked around for a friendly face. Randolph looked ruddy, red and angry. His wife Mary also looked as if she would like to have boiled me along with the cabbage. Their daughter Victoria was concentrating on her plate, avoiding my gaze. My cousin Cassandra and her husband William were both looking at me with a stony expression, and their children were staring straight ahead, looking miserable.

        Hum, I thought. I must have done something really stupid. My mother had regained her seat next to my father, who was sitting at the head of the table. There was only one empty chair, and it was next to him. I looked at his face for only a second, avoiding his gaze. The brief glance told me enough. He radiated white-hot fury.  

        I walked towards the empty chair, painfully aware of the eyes following my every move. My nausea made a comeback, and I had to pause for a second, afraid my antics from the previous evening might make a physical appearance, but I managed to contain myself and stepped forward once more. As I approached the chair, my father placed a hand on the seat, and then addressed me.

        “Before you sit, Charles, is there anything you would like to say?” His voice was calm, but the chill that accompanied his words could have extinguished the fire burning in the grate.

        I straightened and summoned up all the courage I could muster.

        “Of course,” I said with a small bow. I turned to everybody at the table. “I would like to offer you all my sincerest apologies for my behaviour last night. I appreciate the fact that I may have over-indulged in the wine,” a small burp escaped my lips at this point, as the mention of wine had increased the nausea. The women scowled at me, and Randolph even exclaimed, “Oh for heaven’s sake!” before I could continue. “-and I’m deeply sorry for the offence I may have caused.”

        Quite pleased with my soliloquy, I made to sit down, but my father still had his hand on my chair.

        “Is that all?” he asked, his tone no longer calm, but rougher than a ship at sea during a storm. “Do you not believe that you should offer a deeper apology, perhaps an individual apology to all the people you offended? Perhaps take steps to repair the trust you have undoubtedly broken? To repair the damage you have caused?” He looked at me with contempt.

        I paused and looked around the room. My stomach made an audible groan at this point as I stared blankly around the room. What in heaven’s name had I done?

        “He doesn’t remember,” Randolph said, quietly at first. He stood up slowly. “The blasted boy doesn’t remember!” his voice much louder this time.

        My father stood also.

        “Randolph,” he said. “Please, I shall handle this.” He took hold of my chair and placed it in the centre of the room. “Sit,” he commanded. He was obviously talking to me, and I had no desire to disobey. I walked over and sat down.

        “As you have no recollection of last night, because of your intoxicated state, I believe it is only just that each person you have wronged tell you exactly what you did. You shall listen to them all, and then we shall see what happens next.”

        The stirrings of guilt I felt did nothing to alleviate my nausea.

        Randolph was the first to rise. He bellowed at me for ten minutes straight. I’d had the nerve to call him an old git who was taking advantage of my father’s money. I had told his wife that she was a horse faced, boring woman who had no more personality than a dead goat, and that I didn’t know how she ever managed to get up in the morning. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I had practically groped their daughter in front of them. Offering to show her what a real man was, not like her lousy father. I had even tried kissing her full on the mouth, right there, before their very eyes. It was a wonder Randolph hadn’t killed me.

        Next, it was my cousin Cassandra’s turn. I didn’t say anything about her or her husband specifically, but I spared no warm feelings for their children. I called them spoiled brats who were two stupid to count to ten, and who were so ugly, it was a wonder they even had the strength to go out in public. 

        I felt such shame! I didn’t know where this had come from. I had never realised I could be such a mean drunk. Guilt embedded my every fibre as they lashed out at me, calling me every name under the sun.

        Finally, they all regained their seats at the dinner table. I got up slowly and walked over to them. I looked down at the food, cooling, waiting for us. A grand turkey sat, proud of place in the centre of the table, surrounded by mountains of vegetables: cabbage, sprouts, carrots, potatoes and such. I finally looked around at each of them. My stomach dancing from nerves, from the wine, and from guilt.

        “To all of you,” I began, but I never finished. My stomach had had enough. It emptied its contents right then, right there, on the turkey, on the vegetables, and onto every person sitting around that table. The vomit splashed in every direction. Randolph’s face had chunks of red regurgitated food in his moustache; the young boys were yelling and crying, moving away from the table. Cassandra was dry heaving, as were my mother and Mary. Only my father seemed unperturbed. He looked at me with loathing. I fled the room, ran all the way up to my bedroom and hid myself under the covers. I was never coming out again.

Worst. Christmas. Ever.

CHRISTMAS DAY, 1966

        I woke up, my head pounding. Oh God, had I done it again? After the lousiest Christmas lunch in the history of humankind, had I got drunk again? I willed myself to open my eyes, but it was too much effort. My brain felt fuzzy and confused. A while later, I’m not sure how long, I heard someone enter the room, and light flitted through my eyelids.

        “Mother,” I groaned, “Please let me sleep. I don’t feel well enough to get up just yet.”

        “Well I can’t say I’m surprised can I?” my mother replied, with a slight chuckle. Something was off. Her voice sounded the same, but her accent seemed different. There was a strange tang to it. It did not sound like my mild mannered mother. I opened my eyes and looked over at her.

        “Mother?”

        “You were so pissed last night. Blimey, you were rude to everyone! You’d better get your sorry bum out of bed and apologize before lunch.”

        I did not reply. In my defence, the woman sitting next to me on the bed was indeed my mother, yet at the same time, she looked nothing like her. She was wearing some type of multi coloured dress. It was extravagant. My mother would never wear something like that. My head started spinning, and I looked away from her. I actually recoiled away. As I did, I accidentally knocked something from the bedside table, which fell onto the carpeted floor.

        “You’ve knocked over that lava lamp of yours,” she said, picking up the said lamp. I looked at the strange item. A lamp made from lava?

        My stomach chose that moment to growl loudly as a wave of nausea hit me.

        “Oooh, someone’s hungry,” mother said. “Come on, put your suit on, you wanna look fancy for Christmas, don’t ya? She rose and walked out of the room.

        I got dressed. I must have still been under the influence of the wine. My mother too, barring that, she had gone crazy. She had just said that it was Christmas, but we celebrated Christmas day yesterday. Still, I pulled out my one and only suit, the one gifted to me by father for my eighteenth birthday, but something was wrong. My suit, originally a dark grey, was now bright blue. Maybe it was a different one, because I had vomited all over the other one. That made sense.

        I put on the suit. It was odd, the colour itself was very unusual, but it also had white ruffs, and the legs of the trousers were wider at the bottom. I glanced at myself in the mirror. The effect was strange, but not unpleasant. I made my way downstairs.

        In the dining room, everybody was sitting in the exact same position as the previous day. And just like the previous day, they all had rather stony expressions on their faces. What were they still doing here? Didn’t they have homes to go to? There were several differences though. For one thing, the Christmas tree was much bigger than it had been the day before, and everybody was wearing different clothes, all very colourful in fact, not unlike my own suit. The biggest change however was my father, who stood when I approached, and actually smiled at me.

        “There he is,” he said. “Our little drunk.” He sounded stern, but nothing as bad as he had the previous day. In fact, for my father, he seemed to be positively beaming.

        “Father,” I said nodding at him, then at the others.

        “I think you should start by apologising to everyone for your behaviour last night, young man. It is unacceptable to speak to friends and family in that way.”

        “Last night?” I said. “You mean two nights ago, father?”

        “I must say, I like this ‘father’ business. No, Charlie, I mean last night, when you got really drunk and said mean things to everybody. Come on now, we know you were drunk and didn’t mean them, but you should say sorry. You really upset Randy here.” He pointed at Randolph, who looked a lot less angry than he had before, but still rather hurt.

        Two things struck me. First, my father called me ‘Charlie’, something he had never done in his life, and he called Randolph ‘Randy’, which he had also never done.

        “You can apologize to me kids and all,” Cassandra said. “For calling ‘em ugly and whatnot.”

        “Of course he will Cassie,” my mother said. Cassie?

        My head was spinning worse than ever. I hadn’t sat down yet, and I thought I might faint. What on Earth was going on? Were they all playing some kind of joke on me? I opened my mouth to ask that exact question, but all that came out was a spray of vomit, showering the food, and everyone around the table with chunks of half-digested food and wine.

        Once again, I fled to my room. What was happening? I needed to sleep and just get this day over with!

CHRISTMAS DAY 2026

        My pounding head woke me again. But this time, I reacted immediately. I got up, ignoring my protesting brain. The fuzziness in my mind took a minute to clear enough for me to open my eyes and look around. Why was I still hungover? Was it Christmas day again? In the semi-darkness, I could tell that something was odd about my room. I stood up and opened the curtains to let in the light. There was a funny looking rectangle box near the bed, with some light coming from it. I peered closer; there were moving pictures inside the box. What on Earth? From downstairs, I could hear music. Had father ordered a band to come and play? It didn’t sound like any music I had ever heard before.

        I sprinted downstairs, not bothering to get dressed, and trying my best to ignore my thumping head and nausea. I burst into the dining room and gasped. There was another moving picture box from which the music was coming from, placed next to an enormous Christmas tree, decorated so garishly that I was shocked mother would let such a thing in the house.

        Everyone looked at me as I entered. They were all wearing different clothes again. There wasn’t as much resentment in their faces now. They even cheered when they saw me.

        “Hey, he’s finally up,” Cassandra said. “Merry Christmas Charlie! How’s your head?”

        “Sore,” I replied, confused by what was happening. “Is it Christmas day?”

        Everybody laughed.

        “So drunk he doesn’t even remember what day it is!” Randolph laughed.

        “Sit down, Charlie,” father said. “Have some coffee.”

        I sat down next to my father. Beside me, Cassandra poured some coffee into a mug that said, ‘Happy Holidays’ on it, and passed it over.

        “Did I say anything bad?” I asked, still trying to make sense of everything.

        Again, everyone laughed.

        “Yeah,” said Cassandra. “But we just told you to sleep it off in your room and you could come out when you were feeling better. You called me kids spoiled! Can’t believe you said that! I mean, they only got an IPhone 16 each, a PlayStation 5, that new Car thief game, a box of chocolates and two hundred quid each. As if that’s spoiled!”

        I hadn’t understood half of what she had just said. My head started spinning again. I felt a wave of nausea, and thought I knew what was about to happen. I stood up, but too late, I vomited all over the table.

CHRISTMAS DAY 2086

        I woke up, my head pounding. I felt my heartrate accelerate as it had the previous times I had woken up. This feeling of being hungover could only mean one thing: it was still Christmas day, and everything was going to be strange again. I couldn’t even be bothered to open my eyes. I lay there, thinking I should just go back to sleep. As I thought this however, a cool, calm and neutral voice spoke.

        “Distress detected. Ethanol levels dangerously high. Distributing medicine.” I opened my eyes and heard a whirring noise. Next to me was a small container, into which a small yellow pill dropped, right on top of four other yellow pills. Before I could do anything, my mother entered the room, wearing an odd grey smock.

        “You look terrible Charles,” she said, before glancing down at the container full of pills. “You haven’t taken any hangover pills? Silly boy! Of course, we gave you a sleeping capsule when you started saying stupid things, so you didn’t wake when the medico-bed called you. Didn’t I activate auto-inject? Oh no, I didn’t, look!” She reached down by the bed and flipped a switch. Immediately, a mechanical arm reached out and pinched my thigh.

        “Outch,” I yelled.

        “You’ll be fine soon”, mother said. “Remember, you’ll feel drowsy…” I didn’t hear the rest, because I was out in seconds.

DECEMBER 26^th 1866

I woke up, my head no longer pounding. I looked around, everything seemed normal. I got up and made my way downstairs. My mother and father were in the sitting room, alone. No one else. I sighed with relief. I glanced at the date on father’s newspaper: December 26^th. I sighed with relief.

        Worst. Christmas. Ever.