Christmas breakdowns......stuf f

It's called Sods Law!!! Thought our hob had gone pear shaped this morning but it turned out OK in the end

I am resolutely not replying to this thread, it's tempting fate

Several years ago, Sunday, 3 days before Christmas DGD was being christened in local church, with lunch for 20 afterwards at our house, 8 immediate family were staying on for Christmas as well, so I went down with a severe respiratory infection and the dishwasher broke down. Everybody rallied round. All I remember is that whenever I saw DDiL's mother and sister, they were in the kitchen washing up. I think they spent the whole Christmas in the kitchen doing the washing up.

We are still on really good terms, although they haven't spent Christmas with us since.

One of our loos has decided not to flush. We are 9adults (4 of them staying with us) tomorrow and 13 plus 3 children on Boxing Day ??

I was making a cheese souffle for dinner this evening. I had everything prepared and the last thing you do is to whip the the egg whites and stir them in before you bake it.

I got my hand mixer out and all it did was give a growl and a sigh and died. Panic for a moment and then I remembered that I had my Mils old Moulinex which had a cream and meringue whipping attachment. A lot of hard work was saved.

Last year over about three weeks the washing machine died. The dishwasher died the morning my DD and kids arrived and the kettle went a couple of weeks later.

Washing machine decided to play up yesterday. Luckily our lovely neighbours have said I can use theirs until the New Year And we own lots of underwear!

Went to ds, dil and 3x gc last night, car a bit strange on the way there! Time to go home and the car was as dead as a dodo. Ds had to take us home, lucky it's not too far! What a pain and it's Christmas!!!!!!!?

Weird and spooky. Just reading about overthehills oven light bulbs when OH walked in and said ours has gone too. That's two things with the kettle that went kerplunk yesterday. Perhaps three if you add in the roof leak!

Ah. This is a well know phenomena... the innate hostility of inanimate objects. Christmas Eve is their big moment - likewise any time just before the shops close.

Boiler went on the blink night before Xmas eve, luckily got an engineer out on Xmas eve, fixed it all fine phew.

Guess it's called life. Just think how doubly chuffed you'll be with yourself at how well you coped. Nothing like a challenge! Merry Christmas.

One year when money was very tight the washing machine died completely in November (two children under eight - school uniforms etc) and then our old cooker developed a fault that was so expensive to fix that it was half the price of a new one. We reached Christmas £1,000 down with absolutely nothing to show for it - still just able to wash clothes and cook meals, nothing extra. We all enjoyed our sock with a tangerine and nuts in the toe.

Central heating packed in a week or so ago. Our friendly CH engineer has practically lived here to get it fixed. Now the thermostat has gone.... gah!

We've had our TV pack in Xmas eve one year. The central heating boiler packed in Xmas eve another year......brrrrrr

A couple of days before last Christmas, our oven started blowing all the fuses when we opened the door, we were expecting 9 for Christmas, more on boxing day. In desperation, we rang the local firm that installed our kitchen 5 years earlier. The phone was answered, the 'boss' had only dropped into the office for a couple of minutes to pick up any mail, the business had closed for the holiday period but he answered the phone anyway. He said he wasn't sure what he could do so close to Christmas and he'd ring us back if he could. 20 minutes later, there was a knock at the front door and we were given a temporary oven. The ovens were a standard size and easily exchanged. Our Christmas was saved, thanks to a local company who's manager believes in good customer service. Everything is working well this Christmas (except me)!

As got out of car in supermarket carpark loud hissing noise that discovered was tyre going down great timing. So I had to battle alone doing the Cristmas shop while DH changed it with help of another broken down chap that then gave jump start to.

A few years ago my oven went bang and died just as i was goingvto cook a roast meal for 12 (family) on New Years Day.! Luckily the top (small) oven still worked nd i just managed to get the meat in there. I did all the veg on the hob (mashed instead of roast potatoes!) and Id made the pudding earlier to eat cold so I managed somehow but it was very difficult!

How odd that this thread should pop up now! Everything going well today until suddenly the oven (Neff only bought two months ago) blew, blowing all the fuses, tv off, phones off, wifi off etc. It wouldn't recover, whatever we did it just blew everything. I rang our neighbours who, luckily, had finished their lunch early so let us put the turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, parsnips, etc in their oven! Thank goodness for neighbours.

We eventually had a bad tempered lunch, not up to my husband, the chef's, usual standard but we got there. We have my renowned super duper buffet (even if I do say so myself!) for 7 tomorrow but the gammon will have to go in the Reloska and everything else will have to be prepared any other way. Neff will hear from us on Tuesday!

Yesterday morning our gas boiler decided to leak water everywhere. Had to clear out te contents of the cupboard where it lives as everything saturated. We called out the emergency plumber who could come until 5.30 but at least he was able to come. He drained everything down to stop the leak and said the boiler had died! No heating or hot water and we both have stinking colds. Just as well we are at our daughters for Xmas. Ps the coffee machine has packed up too

There's always someone worse off than you.........

& I thought I'd had bad luck when TV packed up less than 2 weeks before Christmas, DD had a TV of mine which I no longer needed, so quick dash over to DD's & back in time to change for Lunch Club. 2 days later DD rang to say a friend had a 32" TV approx 4 years old, working but no longer needed - not a total disaster in the grand scheme of things!!

Well, Turkey went in at 9am for a quick blast of heat, then I turned the heat down about 9.30. Off I toddled to open presents and returned to check on the bird about an hour later. Oven was strangely cool and the turkey still pale and raw. The thermostat was on the blink. We spent the next 30 minutes faffing about to no avail. Then I remembered that we had a large but portable oven lurking in a store room. We had inherited it years ago but had decided to keep it, "just in case!"
The sight of its replacement clearly frightened the faulty cooker because we gave it one last chance and it worked perfectly. Lunch was a tad late but it went down well. ??

Our boiler decided to pack in a couple of weeks ago and was practically rebuilt by the engineer who came out twice and spent hours changing every conceivable part - yesterday its gone on the blink again and goes off like a bomb (or the old fashioned geezers we used to have) so it will be yet another call tomorrow - can't be much more they can mend on it!!

We've had the heating go at Christmas, too. My worst was when I was expecting 16 for a sit-down lunch in the summer and the oven conked out. Fortunately, I still had a portable countertop oven which I could plug in outdoors and cook in front of my guests! There was only room for one roast at a time, though, so I did a pork roast earlier and served it cold, the beef was cooked just before they came and a large salmon trout in foil was cooked when they arrived.