My Worst Christmases Ranked

Pissing my pants, Bill Clinton and a stocking full of cancer.

When I was younger, I would wrap something my brothers already owned — like a single shoe.

This Christmas gift never failed to delight me and annoy my family. You can’t return a shoe you own, though I imagine my parents wondered if it was possible to “return” a child as this tradition stretched over the years.

I don’t know the criteria to get on (or off) Santa’s naughty list. I imagine it’s a sliding scale. Gifting someone an old shoe is a minor offence. Eating cookies left out for Santa is slightly worse than that. Murder and cannibalism are probably near the top — like our regular justice system.

Christmas is a time of giving, so this year, I’ll give you a list of my Top 5 Worst Christmases. Push Santa’s sack out of the way (eww), and let’s go cruising through the ghosts of Christmas past.

5th Worst Christmas - 1988 (2 months old)

I was born in November, so my first Christmas arrived when I was two months old.

One of my earliest memories is being four years old and trying to hold in a pee at daycare. I didn’t fancy dropping my trousers among the other kids and thought waiting until I got home was best. Without total control of my bladder, I pissed myself within 20 minutes, which was much worse than dropping my trousers among other kids.

Sadly, I can’t remember anything further back than that. Your first year of life is when you are most loved and adored. This steadily decreases as you age and as you piss off your parents (or piss your pants, depending on whether your life aligns with mine).

This memory black hole is frustrating because I was probably the star of Christmas 1988. I would have had all the hugs and kisses. All eyes would have been on me. It sounds like a damn good festive period… but since I can’t remember any of that, it lands as my 5th worst Christmas.

4th Worst Christmas - 1998 (10 years old)

On December 19th, 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives.

I want to make it clear: as a 10-year-old boy, I did not have sexual relations with that man. You won’t find me associated with the impeachment process, and it is a common myth that my absence is due to a team of lawyers fighting to exclude my name. The truth is I genuinely had nothing to do with it.

Still, that type of news can make it hard to enjoy Christmas. I don’t know if any of my relatives were having an affair that year, but you can’t enjoy a plate of Mum’s overcooked chicken with the topic of infidelity hanging over your head like a formal House inquiry.

Was that why my uncle was so on edge that day? Maybe. It might also have been the overcooked chicken, and that’s why this was my 4th worst Christmas.

Actual headline from the impeachment trial (#history)

3rd Worst Christmas - 2000 (12 years old)

My parents claimed they were never worried about the threat of Y2K and the possible collapse of civilisation. I want to believe them, but a walk-in cupboard full of canned goods tells a different story.

The turn of the Millennium brought my own problems, and I’m genuinely embarrassed and ashamed to include this on my list, but if I’m not going to overshare on the internet, WHO WILL?

After tearing open 10+ presents and covering the floor in choking hazards for the family dog, I sat in the corner, doing my best not to attract attention (but also desperate to attract attention). When my Dad — whose business was the sole family income putting food on the table and paying for gifts for me and my four brothers — asked what was wrong, I told him my brothers got more presents than me.

If ever child protection laws should be rolled back for one legal frying pan to the head, that was the moment legislators would have had my vote.

I have repeatedly apologised to my Dad over the two decades since then. He smiles and waves it off because he’s a great bloke while I’m some Gollum creature, muttering to myself about how I should kill my family and make their gifts mine.

Life is expensive. Parents try so fucking hard. I’ve got a daughter due in 2025, so this is the last year before I become Santa Claus. I regret being a total dick of a kid and making my Dad feel like he’d done something wrong when I was the one in error.

Easy spot as the 3rd worst Christmas.

2nd Worst Christmas - 2008 (20 years old)

I got leukemia a week before Christmas when I was twenty years old. This made it very difficult to enjoy the festive season. I was sure Santa’s reindeer were Dasher and Dancer, not Dasher and Cancer.

My parents' late shopping habits compounded this nightmare of a Christmas. A week out, and they still hadn’t bought gifts (diamonds form under pressure). Chemo was required immediately, but I was arranged to spend three hours at home on Christmas Day.

This gave my parents a choice of shops between my house and the hospital—and 40 minutes. It’s a miracle they found anything. Before heading back to the hospital to begin seven months of chemo, I got a small ceramic sword and a copy of Eureka’s Chess Master, a chess game for Windows 98.

This isn’t a shot at my parents for not getting better gifts, by the way. It’s an example of why this Christmas lands squarely as the second worst. Life’s major challenges rarely strike in isolation. Like an earthquake, the aftershock spreads, damaging the people you love most.

Every Christmas since this one has been a double-edged sword. Despite endless therapy and self-work, December triggers a painful, anxious reaction like I’m allergic to the holiday season. My chest tightens, my body aches, and my mind spins like a top — all screaming at me that I’m going to die.

Having experienced this for fifteen years, I’ve become accustomed to this dance. That doesn’t make it easy, but there’s a macabre comfort in the darkness. We know each other so well now. The fear carries me until December ends when we part ways, leaving space between our next inevitable meeting and the parts of me I’m afraid to confront.

On the plus side, I got pretty good at chess. Every cancer has a silver lining.

Merry Christmas!

Worst Christmas - 2011 (23 years old)

What Christmas could be worse than cancer?

It’s difficult, but I spent Christmas with an ex-girlfriend in Thailand.

While she was down at the beach getting a 30-minute massage, I channelled the grand tradition of teenage boys worldwide (despite being in my 20s) and used that half an hour to molest myself.

Problematically, I had no material for inspiration, and a lifetime of underusing my imagination left my brain with all the power of an indoor windmill. Instead, I took my girlfriend’s iPod to the lobby, connected to the free WiFi while leafing through a brochure about elephants and loaded the first adult video I found.

Then, I ran back to my cabin and set the iPod on the edge of a sink to… be hands-free.

Before getting into things, I was disturbed by a noise at the door. Pivoting to look over my shoulder, my elbow pushed the iPod off the sink and into the toilet. In. The. Toilet. Pulling the soaked electronic device out of the bowl, I hurried to see who was knocking.

It might have been a stray monkey, a falling palm frond, or my guilty conscience — no one was there.

Turning back to the iPod, I pressed the ‘Home’ button and… nothing happened. I’d dodged being caught with my proverbial and literal pants down, but things were grim.

My girlfriend would try and figure out why her iPod was dead. She might even succeed in bringing it back to life, and if she did, she’d see two nurses guiding a man back to health using a technique not taught in any respectable medical school.

Instead of being an adult in an adult relationship and explaining what happened, I did the stupidest thing possible…

I put the iPod on the floor, raised my foot, and smashed the screen with the heel of my shoe.

Then, I put the fractured iPod in the bottom of her bag, where it sat for a couple of days until we were on a bus between Phuket and Bangkok, and she found it.

“Must have got smashed in your bag, babe”, I lamented.

I gave her a new iPod “just because” two days later.

I’m constantly reminded of that youthful Christmas stupidity. If someone mentions Thailand… if I see an Apple product… if a monkey is knocking at my door. All triggers. I can’t escape that faux pas, and, to be fair, I probably shouldn’t.

Immaturity prevented me from handling that like an adult, and while it was my worst Christmas memory, I’ve learned from it.

That’s what Christmas is good for. The food, presents, and family time are all awesome, but if you can look back and say you’ve genuinely tried to become a better person since last Christmas, you’re on the right track.

A worst Christmas is a chance to have a better Christmas next year. A moment of personal regret is a signpost to make better choices in the future. And a single shoe is a damn fine Christmas present — especially if it already belongs to someone else.

Merry Christmas ❤️🎄

With love,

New World Porter

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