The holidays are the time for merriment, cheer, and home disasters. It’s the holiday season — something’s bound to go wrong.

We’ve all heard about those nightmarish holiday disaster stories in which accident after accident befalls some poor soul who just wanted a quiet, peaceful Christmas with the family. And we know you can’t get enough of those stories, so we’re here to bring you more!

We asked around to get some of the most ridiculous holiday horror stories from home owners who just couldn’t catch a break, and we rounded up several of our favorites.

Unwanted Holiday Guests 

“My family and I cut down our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. We enjoy donning our Santa hats to find the ‘perfect’ tree and the experience of the afternoon outdoors.

However, a few years ago, we brought home a bit more of nature than we intended: spiders! Apparently, there were egg sacs in our ‘perfect tree,’ and because they are so sticky, they clung to the tree branches.

Unfortunately, after a few days in the warmth of our home, we had spiderlings everywhere! I don’t know what kind they were, but they were tiny and I kept finding them and their webs for weeks after the tree went up. It was almost a sad, annoying game. Each night, I would find new webs and new spiders, and I would vacuum them up.

With my diligent efforts — and because the spiders that came for a bit of Christmas with us weren’t house spiders and accordingly didn’t find what they needed in our house to sustain themselves — the problem went away after a few weeks. Lesson learned, though: Now we check each tree thoroughly before bringing it home! If we ever find an egg sac in the future, it won’t change our love of the perfect tree. We will just be sure to remove the spider eggs before bringing it home!” – Missy Henriksen

A Wet ‘n’ Wild Christmas

“Just before Christmas dinner last year, when all the decorations were making the house so festive, we heard a howling scream from my 4-year-old niece, who had her fingers slammed in the door.

While assessing whether she needed to go to emergency –and she did, four hours in hospital emergency, missing Christmas dinner – I caught some appetizers on fire, and while carrying the tray to the sink, I badly burnt my fingers.

My brother-in-law and I managed to cook dinner while our wives were at the hospital, and it wasn’t until after dinner, while we were sitting around the tree drinking wine, congratulating ourselves on successfully ‘doing Christmas,’ that we realized that my 5-year-old son had plugged a shower drain with an ornamental Christmas plate and had made good progress on successfully flooding the basement.

A large part of the evening after the kids went to bed was spent drying out the basement ceiling with a hair dryer — some watermarks remain that we haven’t fixed yet — and some soggy carpet required a high-powered vacuum to absorb the water.”

– John Lyotier

More than Holiday Decorations on Display 

About five years ago, I was hanging lights on our house. I came to a section where there is a pitch in the roof, and the ladder did not quite make it, so I climbed into the tree in front of the window where the pitch was located.

I got up fine, hung the lights, but as I began to make my way down the tree, the branch broke. I fell through the branches and landed on my bum. I stood up to see my neighbors across the street looking at me like I was crazy.

That’s when I realized it felt very breezy. The limbs of the tree had actually ripped my shirt off. Unfortunately, I was not wearing a bra at the time. To this day, I will not decorate without making sure I have all my undergarments on, and I no longer climb in trees!”

– Tamara Krause

A Modest Christmas Dinner

“A few years ago, we hosted Christmas dinner at our new home, which was a total fixer-upper. But we were proud of our new house and wanted to have everyone over.

Not many things in the house worked, but the oven did — or so we thought. We had lived there for a few months and didn’t have any problems with it, until it was time to cook Christmas dinner. Keep in mind, we were having ten people over for dinner.

Proud of myself for already prepping all the food, all I had to do was set the table and pop it all in the oven. Easy peasy! I turned the oven on, and nada! It didn’t work!

Needless to say, I cooked the entire meal in a toaster oven. Some things were lukewarm by the time everything was ready, but I think the meal turned out well despite being oven-less.”

I’m sure we all have a least 10 of our own holiday disaster stories. In the end, these stories are just a reminder to us that we should make the best of it and not forget to be grateful for all of the good in our lives. – Danielle Elderkin