Silence. Merry Christmas, everybody.

Two years ago, my brother and his wife had just separated and were talking divorce when the holidays rolled around. They wanted to pretend that everything was fine during Christmas so the kids could enjoy it then they planned to tell the kids what was going on after the new year.

So it is Christmas eve and a bunch of us are at their house for dinner and some gift exchanging. It is awkward as heck because everyone in the room knows about the separation except for the kids.

My oldest niece (who was about 13 at the time) was sitting at the table with everyone eating when someone said something about marriage being hard. My niece said, "I'm sure it is. That's why mom and dad are giving up." When asked why she thought that she said, "Because mom is a non-stop witch who only cares about herself and Dad and all of us are sick of her crap."

A hushed awkward silence fell over the room and barely a word was spoken for the next hour.

My nephew is dyslexic and his other grandmother called him "autstic" and "special needs" in the same sentence while we were cooking dinner. It was meant to be derogatory and he heard it.

My sister (his mom) went bananas... the kid couldn't be more normal. Can't read or write worth a crap but he's busting his butt trying to deal with it. He's just a normal kid...plays baseball, video games, hangs with his friends, etc. That was awkward. Thank God for adult grape juice.

After we were eating Christmas dinner, my brother was complaining that my teenage niece was stealing all of his sweatshirts. He explained that when he gets them back, "They're covered in lipstick, makeup, and 'boy stuff'....." Now he meant boy stuff as in her boyfriend's smell/cologne, but it definitely didn't come off that way and several people just froze and stared until the moment passed.

My brother is a serial dater and brings a new girl every time he comes home for Christmas. They're always along the same lines: model height, tall, skinny, blonde, apply lotion constantly and have been doing yoga since before it was cool.

That's all well and good, except after the 6th consecutive girl like this (I kid you not), it gets kinda hard to remember their names.

Fast forward to Xmas dinner this year and my stepmom serves this year's girl up dinner and calls her by last year's girl's name. So awkward. So so awkward.

It was my fault this time.

I mentioned how there was a streak in my wife's side of the family where women like MUCH older men. Turns out this is something that is acknowledged but not actually mentioned.

I got some dirty looks and awkward silence for that!

At that, my aunt told him that he'd just ruined her Christmas and that he'd never be invited again. At which point he got up quietly and left.

We were at my boyfriend's parent's house. His dad started lecturing him at dinner about how he's the only one of his siblings or sibling's SOs without a graduate degree.

His brother and sisters have doctorates. His brother in law and future sister in law are MDs, his other sister's partner has an MBA, and I went to law school.

His dad asked me if I was embarrassed to take someone with "Only a bachelor's degree" to work functions. So it was fun to get pulled into that.

Accidentally came out in passing, in front of my diehard conservative Christian family.

Everyone went completely silent, except for my brother, who almost died laughing. He's known for about two years. He tried to play it off by acting like he dared me to say it as a joke. Everyone seemed to believe him, but every so often I get strange side glances from my parents.

Nearly the whole of my extended family swear a lot. Not aggressively, it's just not frowned upon in our family and so we swear casually in conversation. However my aunt decided last Christmas that it was bad and started telling everyone off for even the slightest swear word.

It became very annoying and petty, so this Xmas, my dad wrote a 'play' for some holiday entertainment for myself and my cousins to perform. It involved a lot of brilliant swearing and then the villain saying that we "must not swear as it is very rude" -- blatantly taking a shot at my aunt.

It wasn't actually performed in front of my aunt, but she found the script and brought it up over dinner. It became awkward very quickly. Still funny though.

My aunts got in a physical fight at Christmas dinner once because my grandma (their mother) was wearing a fat diamond ring they both wanted when she died. They each proclaimed this quite loudly at the dinner table, in front of my still incredibly healthy grandma and the rest of the family.

Next thing I know, the table upends and they are kicking, screaming, and clawing on the floor as everyone else kind of just stands there in shock. Grandpa just shook his head and had another drink of whatever was in his glass. I hope it was strong, grandpa.

My dad intentionally rigged my car to explode the last time I saw him. He and my stepmom took out life insurance policies on my step sister and me and they were looking to cash in.

That year I went to their house for the holidays and while we were eating he went out into my car and loosened up all of the fuel lines. It was a sports car, so the engine would get really hot. He took off the valve cover (i.e. engine cover) so that it was bare metal under the hood. I caught him outside with the hood up when I went out to smoke. He said he was just glancing around.

One day a few weeks later, the fuel lines popped off while I was driving. The car just died out (thank god) so I jumped out and popped the hood to see fuel had sprayed all over everything. Called my dad to ask what to do. He told me I had to get the car to his house which was 30 miles away.

Instead I got it towed to my shop and that's where they told me that it looked like the hose clamps were intentionally loosened.

I knew that no one else was ever even under the hood. I've never gone home since, obviously.

My step-dad has anger issues, and mom is an enabler type ("Oh, that's just who he is! you know! Just don't make him upset!").

Literally (not figuratively) every Christmas, step dad causes a fight. I've learned to think it's funny, and just laugh at his 5-year-old tantrums now (since I no longer depend on them what-so-ever), and just leave if he gets too crazy.

His antics are usually triggered because someone wrapped presents wrong, or opened a present in the wrong order (this was literally the cause of his tantrum once). His tantrums consist of throwing things, breaking things, slamming doors, running around yelling like Tarzan in the driveway, and veins exploding from his forehead.

Was scary to watch when I was 10, but now it's just comical.

He's in his late 50s now.

Not my family, but my wife's side of the family. I refuse to attend any of their holiday get-togethers. She's from a small town in Western Missouri named Boonville and I lived in the Saint Louis area most of my life.

I guess me being a Saint Louis city slicker was just too much for her family. As my wife was introducing me to her extended family I hear someone say, "Look at him all dressed up nice and fancy, I bet you're one of those city folk who voted for that [bleep] Obama." What in the world are you talking about? What am I supposed to say to that?

I just looked at my wife like... "Please get me out of this hillbilly nightmare..." I've never gone back. Yeeeeeehaaawwww!

Honestly, the best cure for your annoying family around the holidays is to just be brutally honest.

One side of my family is just a bunch of blowhards who all went to Ivy League schools and work on Wall Street and they just suck. I definitely went to a good school and have a good job, but every year they try to make me feel like crap.

I got accepted early decision to a good college, and at Christmas that year the cousins go "So, did you apply early because you didn't think you'd get in anywhere else?"

I started dating a nice guy and had him over for drinks at Thanksgiving..."Wow, your boyfriend went to XYZ school? What kind of job is he planning to get with that degree?"

They want you to squirm and feel insignificant so they can feel better. So I just started telling them what they wanted to hear.

I moved for a good job, and first thing they said last year was, "So you're living in that neighborhood? Isn't that a bad part of town?"

I just said, "Not really, but I don't make a lot of money so it's all I can afford! Oh well!"

I'd also broken up with my boyfriend, which of course led to, "So, when do you think you'll finally find a good guy to stick around?"

I just said, "No idea. Maybe I should go get a boob job in case it's my personality that sucks!"

They just looked really shocked and then THEY were the uncomfortable ones. Felt so good. Try it out.

My brother's girlfriend quietly asked if we'd be into "sharing a night" with her. When my wife (who can be somewhat clueless at times) asked her what she meant, she very bluntly replied with, "I want to do you so bad while your husband does me."

My wife's jaw hit the floor as my eyebrows attempted to climb up and over the top of my head. We both stammered out a polite refusal, right before my mother called everyone to the table.

Sitting across from my brother during dinner, hooo… awkward.

My wife and her sisters argue over their inheritance at Christmas. With that being said it’s definitely not anything special.

Apparently there is a spoon that they used while growing up. It’s supposedly a very nice spoon. They all argue about who’s going to get that spoon when their very healthy mother dies. I’ve never really understood it.

I think my favorite part of their argument is the fact that it’s not the brand of spoon or anything like that. For Christmas a couple years ago my wife got each of them their own spoon. Same make and model. They were all excited. But now they all want the original spoon.

My grandfather and his siblings are barely on speaking terms after arguing (and the ensuing legal battles) about who inherited my great grandpa's stuff. When my (in our 20s) siblings and I saw that we all agreed that no matter what happens we’ll never let that greed tear us apart like that.

This was was when I was 5 years-old on a Christmas night. My brother was cooking while my wrathful father had been drinking and passed out on the couch. My brother made turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

When it was time to eat, all seemed well. My brother made a speech about the greatest gift he was ever given and I just watched in amazement. My father then looked at the food and said, "Why don't you act like normal kids?" I was confused and my brother looked at him. My father said, "You always force yourselves to be different. No wonder why your mother is gone. She doesn't want to see our sons like this. The oldest one dyeing his hair white and the youngest being a pathetic weakling!"

Our mother passed away when I was a few months old in a accident. My brother and father started screaming and arguing with each other.

I felt choked up and went to my room. Around 10 PM, my brother came into our room and brought me dinner. I am just grateful to have my sibling with me.

Only ONCE did my family ever do the "kid's table" thing for dinner, and I'm pretty sure that I'M the reason they never did it again. I'm not sure where this "kid's table" idea even got started or why, but I'd heard of it before because I knew other people who were raised that way. Well, one year it was decided that that's the way they'd be doing our and that I had no say in the matter.

Which, if I were 10, I'd probably have just learned to live with it and moved on. But that year, I had just turned NINETEEN YEARS OLD. I had my drivers' license, a job, and had just voted for the first time in my life. And my older sister, whom for some messed up reason was okay with this, had just gotten ENGAGED! My jerk-teenager rationale at the time was that if I was old enough to vote and pay taxes like the other adults, then at least I could eat a meal like one.

I may have had no say in the seating arrangements, but I happily spent the rest of the meal ruining everyone's morale in between bites of food with my many rants and tangents, and to a room full of people whom I later found out weren't even invited over to our house that year (they just showed up, they do that a lot, actually).

If you DO have a "kid's table" at your house this year, rethink your criteria of what qualifies someone as being a "kid" lest some 19 year old jerk does the same.

You say, "But hey! Maybe it was gift to a male friend. Are you against your girlfriend having male friends??" No, I am not. Just wait:

So I say something like, "Uh thanks, hun." Her face drains of color. She says, "Oops, that is for some one else, must have brought it inside on accident." Then snatches it out of my hands.

And then I hold out the card that was attached to the wrapping: Hey baby, love ya lots. Merry Christmas.

And to clarify: yes, she was cheating. I guess there were tickets to some big upcoming game tucked inside the hat too. Needless to say it was freaking embarrassing to have to essentially break up with your girlfriend in front of your family on Christmas morning.

My parents were separated and when I was younger I had really wanted an N64. Both my Mom and my Dad asked what I wanted, and I told them, along with my Grandparents.

Come Christmas morning I was delighted to find an N64 beneath the tree. Lo and behold, I go to my Grandparents house later that day to open one last present under the tree. An N64 (atomic purple controller too). My mom hadn't been talking a lot with my grandparents at the time and the miscommunication about who was getting what was pretty obvious based on the look people were giving each other.

Next day my mom drops me off at my dad's (they didn't get along a lot at the time) and jokingly says, "I don't suppose you got him an N64 too?" and my Dad's eyebrows shot up about a foot. Donkey Kong edition.

To this day I still have all 3.

My family was doing a Chinese gift exchange last year where you buy a random gift, and when everyone gets together you put your gifts in a circle and pull numbers out of a hat. This number determines what order you pick gifts in.

Anyhow, it was my turn to go. I picked up the one box that looked the most promising. I proceeded to shake the box very violently, only to hear * THUD * THUD * THUD * THUD * every time. The person who bought the gift started freaking out and told me to stop and open it.

She bought a budgie bird and put it in there. So here I was, stuck with this poor brain damaged bird that I had to take home with me. I learned to love him, of course, but he was scarred for life from being in that box.

One Christmas, I got 18 pairs of socks. I was probably 12 and I tried really hard to look grateful and thank my parents, but with each pair I opened I got progressively more upset. It didn't help my brother was tearing through his toys and video games.

I ended up excusing myself to go to the bathroom and started crying. My mom came to get me and asked me what was wrong. She said to stop crying and come back to the living room.

She then gave me my real gift -- a laptop. The reason I got socks was my mom just wanted me to have something to unwrap because my brother had a lot of cheaper stuff, where I had one bigger thing. I felt incredibly spoiled and embarrassed. Definitely a happy ending!

My parents are pretty bad and inconsistent gift givers.

One Christmas, my 4-year -ld brother got a TV with a DVD and VHS player in it, my sister got a computer.... and I got a bookshelf. I was furious. My sister didn't even like computers, wtf?

I guess to add insult to injury, a few years later she was given a printer. Like, she had a big heavy gift, she got all pumped in the days preceding Xmas, and when she opened it, it was a printer. She cried. For like an hour. It was terrible.

On the upside, we really needed a new printer.

My mother works herself sick every year. There's no stopping her. We get to the parent's house and there's 10 different cookies, eight different kinds of candy made, four different desserts, and you can't see the table because of all the gifts she's wrapping. I do my best to take over at that point, bust she's already coughing, exhausted, and sleep deprived from the two weeks of constant preparation before we arrived.

I wish she didn't feel the need to out-do herself every year. I wish she'd listen to my father, who says he hates the holidays because of all the stuff she does. He doesn't enjoy being in the house with the constant beeping of the oven, powdered sugar on everything, and a sick wife who isn't taking care of herself.

I tell her I don't have a favorite cookie. I tell her the candy is a bit much. I tell her we have 20 people coming for Christmas, surely I and a few of them can make a pie. It doesn't sink in. I blame Martha.

This happened to me a few years ago during the holidays. I was around 11 or 12, and it was your typical holiday dinner family reunion. Turkey, mashed potatoes, pie, you know, the usual suspects. Me and my family were spending some quality time together, watching TV, playing board games, and having fun. This is where the awkward part comes.

About an hour into the party, it occurred to me that I needed to use the bathroom. So I went to the bathroom. During that time, I decided to take advantage of the privacy to watch some... adult content? Now, my grandfather had this Bluetooth earpiece that had voice-command and I thought it was a pretty cool device (until this moment, that is).

Now, being the dumb kid I was, I forgot to turn off Bluetooth on my phone. Surprisingly enough, the phone detected my grandpa's earpiece and automatically paired with it. Meaning the sounds of moaning from my phone were now being broadcast to my grandpa's ear. When I was done, I washed my hands, and walked back to the dinner table to find my grandpa trying real hard to contain his laughter.

I asked him what was so funny, and he replied, "Having a little alone time, now, weren't you?" It was at this point I knew I had messed up, and no one said a word for the rest of the dinner. It was extremely embarrassing, and to this day, I'm still scared to use my phone whenever my grandpa's around. (He still hasn't gotten rid of that stupid thing.)

My mum is a crazy narcissist and my dad was a total enabler. I don't have contact with them in general and they don't know where I live.

Christmas was always at my grandma's house (mum's side, different country), and we'd stay for a week or two.

I think every single time we were over, my mum would absolutely lose her mind over something innocuous and start a screaming session. I'd either lock myself in the bathroom to get away, or one time she locked me in there with her so she could continue berating me.

The last few times ended with my mild-mannered grandma screaming at my mum for "ruining Christmas again." She actually stopped and ended up apologizing to her. Never apologized to me, of course.

I recontacted my grandma after a couple years and I'll visit sometimes. She'll tell me when my mum isn't there so I can visit in peace.

My dad never came to Christmas but my most clear memories of him are having me sit on the couch and throwing a ball directly at my face and manically laughing.

I don't spend Christmas with my mother anymore. Here's why.

When I was between the ages of 15 and 17, my parents were in the process of a nasty divorce and so I spent Christmas eve and morning with my father and then went to my mums side of the family for Christmas dinner. She was so upset that I had spent half my time on Christmas with my dad that during dinner she didn't sit near me or speak to me.

Later that night, as were getting ready for bed in a room we shared, she was typing on her computer still not having said a word to me up to this point. I asked her to be a little quieter because I was trying to sleep, and then she blew up at me with no warning.

The scene ended with her telling me I had ruined Christmas, and my grandpa driving me out to meet my dad at 1am that night. I am forever grateful to my grandfather for taking me out of that horrible situation.

My mother was a narcissist. She got remarried when I was 10 or so and her new man was everything. She had always been abusive, but it was always of the emotional, mental variety. After his unwavering acquiescence of the abuse, he came to agree with it wholeheartedly.

When I was eleven, his three boys came to stay with us over Christmas break from school. They were showered with gifts. I received none. Their explanation being that I was not a good child like his three. The eldest of his children, who was around twelve at the time, took pity on me and gave me an RC car that had been gifted to him.

When I was caught playing with it, it was taken from me. When the eldest explained he had given it to me for Christmas, my stepdad lightly reprimanded him and then took me outside for my punishment. I was told to stand still and watch as he ran the RC toy over with his big truck.

I then had to sleep on the cold cement basement floor for ''taking'' presents from his children.

I've never celebrated Christmas since. The whole holiday season makes me very emotionally wrecked with bitter intermittent flashbacks of the way I grew up.

My dad bought my mom an actual human skull for Christmas a few years back. He wrapped it in a box some toy came in. My parents are weird; this wouldn't have raised an eyebrow at my house.

Unfortunately we did our gift exchange at my maternal grandmother's house who is much less creative with gifts. My dad and brother waited for this to be the last gift given. It was a big presentation. Upon opening it my mom squealed and shoved it back in the box. She was excited but knew it would t go over well.

Of course now everyone wants to know what is in the box. My grandma insists my mom take out the mysterious gift and show it to the room. My aunt started screaming, made her kids leave the room. My grandma almost fainted and told us to get it out of the house immediately. 'Twas hilarious.

Definitely didn't ruin Christmas, but it was super weird and I still have no idea what it means.

One year my uncle, who has nary an artistic bone in his body, decided to carve my Christmas present out of wood. (He lives 500 miles from me so it's not as if he asked me or anything; he just did this.)

So there I am on Christmas opening my present from him and it's Spock. He carved a Mr. Spock out of wood. Badly. He then painted it to vaguely look like Leonard Nimoy.

Mind you, this was when I was 28 years old. Not a kid who loved Star Trek or anything. Just out of the blue, there's this foot-high...thing...in a blue tunic with black hair and pants next to our Christmas tree.

I never did find out why he thought this was a good idea, but the best we could do was roll with it. We went on a cruise the next month and I took him with us. We did the whole "stolen garden gnome" thing, taking pictures with Spock at our dinner table, and over the toilet getting seasick, and tanning on the beach.

Dear little brother,

The internet deserves to know what you did this year, and how proud I am of you.

You're still in your early 20's and figuring stuff out like, what you want to do with your career, do you even want a career, how to take care of a girlfriend properly, what women even want out of a guy. You are still growing out of the adolescent mindhood that your parents are stupid, the world is stupid, and the system is hopelessly stacked against you. But you're doing a good job working through it all, and this Christmas was a prime example.

I agree that it was totally jacked up for our parents to move our Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrations over by a day for the convince of our older sister. You're not married, so its not like this celebration movement makes it more convenient for you to see your in-laws or something. It was a crappy, thoughtless thing to leave you with nobody to visit on a major holiday twice in a row.

You said nothing in protest. You worked that day, and after work you came over to celebrate, even though it was inconvenient for you. Older sis had already left because it was late and her kids were cranky. We stayed (even though our kids were cranky, too) so we could see you for Christmas. You realized this, picked up your guitar while the kids were whining on the couch, and played the song "hallelujah" for them as a lullaby. We got to stay for an extra hour because of that. Thank you.

I'm proud of you little bro. You're turning into a great man. Mom and Dad pulled a crappy one on you this year, and you were a champ about it.