History Main / CrappyHolidays

* WebVideoTheNostalgiaCritic: "It's the Holiday Clusterfuck, Holiday Clusterfuck / Citizens gathered together to run amok..."

* On ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'', JD explains that one of the worst nights of the year to be "on call" is Christmas Eve. Turk starts out all excited about being on call, but then [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome he has to deal with]] the aftermath of drunk drivers, drug overdoses, DomesticAbuse against both women and children, crazed shoppers, drive-by shootings, burns and amputations. By the end of the night, he is exhausted and burned out, and [[CrisisOfFaith seriously questioning]] his [[CompressedVice thitherto-unmentioned]] religious beliefs. [[spoiler: [[AwayInAManger Helping a teenage girl with a high-risk delivery in a nearby park]] helps him get back in the Christmas spirit and regain his faith.]]

** By "Voyage of the Damned," Christmas became so notorious for bad things happening — invasions, killer robot Santas and so on — that the populace of Central London have wisened up and fled to the country, save for the Queen and Wilfred Mott. Good thing too, because the ''Titanic'' is almost dropped from orbit onto the city. Also, in the same episode, the Doctor lampshades this trope:

** "God Help Ye, Merry Bundymen" (season 11): Al and Griff get fired in favor of younger expies of them and Bud and Kelly attempt to hold the D'Arcys' Mary and Joseph statues for ransom, only for them to end up ''decapitated.''

* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'': Almost without fail, the team is working straight through whatever holiday comes up, usually at Gibbs' insistence. Topped by the time that Ziva and Gibbs are [[spoiler:trapped in a gas station, during a blizzard, on Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning, hunted by mercenaries, outnumbered, and ''delivering a freaking baby.'']]

* Christmas in WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}} is this for Dethklok. Let's go down the list: first off, Christmas just isn't brutal. Then they're forced to spend time with their mothers and keep said mothers from getting drunk. Murderface is trying to put on a ChristmasSpecial but no one will do it because the rest of Dethklok isn't on board, leaving his only sponsor the Christian Church. Toki tries to celebrate Christmas but gets his Christmas presents hocked by Dr. Rockzo to fuel his cocaine habit. The mothers end up finding the booze and crashing Murderface's Christmas special, leading to Rockzo getting a handjob from Serveta, traumatizing Skwisgaar, and Toki unable to exact revenge on Rockzo because a drunk Stella knocked a cross into him, pinning him to the floor. Murderface ends up punched by Nathan for being sponsored by the church, then beaten up by the preacher for the ruined special.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'' pretty much ''everyone'' had a crappy Easter weekend, to the point Rev. Putty nearly renamed his sermon 'Hopeless'. It'd take too long to explain what happened to everyone, so just for an idea, here's what happened to the title character, Orel. [[spoiler:He got ''shot by his own father'', who was drunk, and then didn't get it treated for two days, leaving an injured Orel alone in the woods. To top it off, Clay denied doing it, since he was drunk and couldn't remember.]] That event ends up shaping much of Season 3.

* Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses: "It's the Holiday Clusterfuck, Holiday Clusterfuck / Citizens gathered together to run amok..."

Sometimes associated with HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday. A more morbid version of this trope would be TwistedChristmas. See also TheGrinch for characters who openly hate Christmas in particular, ValentinesDayVitriol and ValentinesDayViolence for the Valentine's Day version, and AntiChristmasSong for an entire musical genre built around the Yuletide form of this.

* There's a scene in ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'' where the wizards at Unseen University start thinking back on all the things that bug them about [[YouMeanXmas Hogswatch]], including [[MyNewGiftIsLame disappointing presents]], [[DysfunctionalFamily family feuds cropping up]], and [[CompetitionFreak flaming rows over board games]].

* A ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'' Christmas special had him looking forward to a quiet holiday with his family, ruined when he has a meltdown over it becoming a big impromptu free-for-all party. Donkey later reassures him that this kind of tension is standard holiday fare, telling him "Like my momma always said, 'Christmas ain't Christmas 'till somebody cries!'"

* ''LightNovel/{{Toradora}}'': What was supposed to be a good Christmas for [[{{Tsundere}} Taiga Aisaka]] and [[UnluckyEverydude Ryuuji Takasu]] ended badly for both of them. After surprising a sad and lonely Taiga with a giant teddy bear being Santa Claus, both Taiga and Ryuuji went happy. Then Ryuuji leaves to talk Minori Kushieda to declare his feelings for her. Once he left, Taiga realized [[AnguishedDeclarationOfLove she loved Ryuuji all the time]] and runs crying and [[SayMyName screaming his name]] just to find he's already gone. And Ryuuji? He was rejected by Minori before he said a word, getting sat in the middle of the night until dawn ([[ImColdSoCold IN WINTER]]) and being hospitalized for the rest of the year.[[note]]''Toradora! Portable'' visual novel drives this situation further and starts with an amnesiac Ryuuji awaking in the hospital after a coma with no memories of anything. A direct consequence of almost dying of hypothermia on Christmas Eve. Poor Ryuuji...[[/note]]

Sometimes associated with HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday. A more morbid version of this trope would be TwistedChristmas. See also TheGrinch for characters who openly hate Christmas in particular, ValentinesDayVitriol for the Valentine's Day version, and AntiChristmasSong for an entire musical genre built around the Yuletide form of this.

** Poor Literature/HerculePoirot can't even ''celebrate Christmas'' without having to solve a murder mystery (''Literature/HerculePoirotsChristmas'').

* There's a scene in ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'' where the wizards at Unseen University start thinking back on all the things that bug them about [[YouMeanXmas Hogswatch]], including [[MyNewGiftIsLame disappointing presents]], [[DysfunctionalFamily family feuds cropping up]], and [[SeriousBusiness flaming rows over board games]].

* The Nickelodeon ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' Christmas episode, "Doug's Christmas Story". Right near Christmas, Porkchop bites Beebe's leg (In order to get her away from thin ice when they were ice-skating), injuring her. So Bill Bluff begins pressing charges against Porkchop for injuring his daughter, and he's taken to the pound, with a possible chance of being put to sleep. Interestingly, [[WhamEpisode it's the darkest episode of the Nickelodeon series]].

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty7'': Bowser's job in the game is to make the good characters' summer vacation as miserable as possible. In Party Mode, every five turns he'll do something to make them suffer in some way, reaching a horrific extent in the final board (sinking the island where the Star is, which is also part of that board's gimmick). However, the characters manage to overcome the inconvenience and celebrate by the end regardless; and by the end of Solo Mode, Bowser gets comeuppance for his actions.

* ''Series/AdamTwelve'' has an episode where the officers were trying to help a poor family by getting them some Christmas gifts after theirs were stolen-only to have the gifts stolen when the car they were in was swiped. There's also a drunk driving incident.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS3E16AVerySpecialFamilyGuyFreakinChristmas A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas]]", Lois is constantly bombarded by one disaster after another. She takes them all in stride until, when trying to clean up after coming home, she freaks out after [[RantInducingSlight being told that they're out of paper towels]] (they actually weren't).

* ''LightNovel/{{Toradora}}'': Which was supposed to be a good Christmas for [[{{Tsundere}} Taiga Aisaka]] and [[UnluckyEverydude Ryuuji Takasu]] ended badly for both of them. After surprising a sad and lonely Taiga with a giant teddy bear being Santa Claus, both Taiga and Ryuuji went happy. Then Ryuuji leaves to talk Minori Kushieda to declare his feelings for her. Once he left, Taiga realized [[AnguishedDeclarationOfLove she loved Ryuuji all the time]] and runs crying and [[SayMyName screaming his name]] just to find he's already gone. And Ryuuji? He was rejected by Minori before he said a word, getting sat in the middle of the night until dawn ([[ImColdSoCold IN WINTER]]) and being hospitalized for the rest of the year.[[note]]''Tortadora! Portable'' visual novel drives this situation further and starts with an amnesiac Ryuuji awaking in the hospital after a coma with no memories of anything. A direct consequence of almost dying of hypothermia on Christmas Eve. Poor Ryuuji...[[/note]]

This could also be reminiscence, a frequent subversion of the supposedly joyful holiday atmosphere, when characters reflect on how [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin crappy their holidays are]]. While Christmas is, naturally, the most common venue for this trope (enough to [[TwistedChristmas qualify as a subtrope]]), [[UsefulNotes/ThanksgivingDay Thanksgiving]] is also a frequent target in the U.S. This may be because the latter brings families together but is also completely secular, which is perfect for the mood to be ruined by some argument between people who don't share the same beliefs or customs, [[WellDoneSonGuy not having measured up to parental expectations]], [[IWantGrandkids single and/or childless people being pressured to start a family]], someone coming out of the closet, etc.

** Christmas isn't much better for Orel either. The details are better suited for TwistedChristmas, but the gist is one year he faced the possibility that his parents might divorce, and the next year [[spoiler:he learns he'll be limping the rest of his life because of his father shooting him.]] That Christmas wasn't much better for Clay either.

This could also be reminiscence, a frequent subversion of the supposedly joyful holiday atmosphere, when characters reflect on how [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin crappy their holidays are]]. While Christmas is, naturally, the most common venue for this trope (enough to [[TwistedChristmas qualify as a subtrope]]), [[UsefulNotes/ThanksgivingDay Thanksgiving]] is also a frequent target in the U.S. This may be because the latter brings families together but is also completely secular, which is perfect for the mood to be ruined by some argument between people who don't share the same beliefs or customs, [[IWantGrandkids single and/or childless people being pressured to start a family]], someone coming out of the closet, etc.

This could also be reminiscence, a frequent subversion of the supposedly joyful holiday atmosphere, when characters reflect on how [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin crappy their holidays are]]. While Christmas is, naturally, the most common venue for this trope (enough to [[TwistedChristmas qualify as a subtrope]]), [[UsefulNotes/ThanksgivingDay Thanksgiving]] is also a frequent target in the U.S. This may be because the latter brings families together but is also completely secular, which is perfect for the mood to be ruined by some argument between people who don't share the same beliefs or customs, someone coming out of the closet, etc.

* In the first ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' Christmas special, Lois is constantly bombarded by one disaster after another. She takes them all in stride until, when trying to clean up after coming home, she freaks out after [[RantInducingSlight being told that they're out of paper towels]] (they actually weren't).

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' rarely ever have a Christmas that goes smoothly, but "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" shows without a doubt their worst one ever. First Bart accidentally sets the tree on fire, destroys it and all the presents, and buries it under the snow to hide what he did from the rest of the family. Then he spins a lie that a robber stole everything. The story gets out on the news, prompting the whole town to come forward to their aid, gifting the family $15,000. They blow it all on a new car that they lose immediately to a frozen lake. Then word gets out that the whole thing was a lie, and Springfield as a whole starts to treat the Simpsons as pariahs. By the end of the episode, the family have lost all their possessions, save for a single washcloth that they fight over.

* On ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'', JD explains that one of the worst nights of the year to be "on call" is Christmas Eve. Turk starts out all excited about being on call, but then [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome he has to deal with]] the aftermath of drunk drivers, drug overdoses, DomesticAbuse against both women and children, crazed shoppers, drive-by shootings, burns and amputations. By the end of the night, he is exhausted and burned out. [[spoiler: [[AwayInAManger Helping a teenage girl with a high-risk delivery in a nearby park]] helps him get back in the Christmas spirit.]]

* Music/BobRivers' "Twelve Pains of Christmas" showcases many people struggling with Christmas-related grievances such as rigging up the lights, [[ObnoxiousInLaws facing their in-laws]], whiny children, hangovers and "finding a Christmas tree".

* Music/BobRiver's "Twelve Pains of Christmas" showcases many people struggling with Christmas-related grievances such as rigging up the lights, [[ObnoxiousInLaws facing their in-laws]], whiny children, hangovers and "finding a Christmas tree".