My Husband Was Such a Scooge Yesterday!

He was in a bad mood, but no excuse to spread the venom off to others. When things calm down, I would ask him what was up with him yesterday. I probably would have tossed the cake in the trash yesterday and moved on with celebrating without his grumpiness.

Yeah because writing Scrooge on his cake is bound to improve his mood.

I would have called him on it.
In a "neutral" mature manner. Not in a way to "criticize" him... but in a way that would be telling him you notice, you are wondering why, and that it is affecting EVERYONE in the house, and what is bugging him.
And if he can't snap himself out of that mood, then he could go to another room, by himself and deflate.

Not saying anything, just makes things worse. And then everyone walks on pins and needles. NOT fun.
But he needed to know, that he was affecting everyone in the house.
And being he is an adult, he COULD have said "sorry I'm in a bad mood, I just need a quiet moment to myself..." and then go to another room and deflate.

When a person is grumpy, they can either make everyone else grumpy and spoil it for everyone, or they can recognize it, say it nicely, and then DO something about it, to improve. ie: go to another room and be grumpy by themselves. OR he could have just SAID what is bothering him, why... and then express it to you, in an adult manner.
NO ONE, can read his mind.
So it is rude of him, to act like a fussy Toddler.

And it was also his birthday, if he did not say, how he wanted to celebrate it nor his expectations for it, then that is his, fault.
He could have said, what would have made him happy and how he wanted to celebrate it.

Call him on it.

Did you ever ask him kindly, "Hey, what's wrong? Can I help?"

Sure, he was wrong to make your child cry. But something must have been eating him. And you didn't ask? Or are there things you aren't telling in the post?

Sounds like there's a lot more going on here, especially if you don't even want to ask him what's wrong. I would bet that Dec. 25 is not the only day that your family has some issues. You don't even mention in your post how he is acting TODAY, you just mention yesterday....which, by the way, is over now. Maybe today he'll be in a mood to explain what was going on (and to apologize to you).

ETA: Jo!!! You sooo hit the nail on the head!!! You summed it up much easier than I did!!!
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ouch.

Welcome to mamapedia!!! Sounds like it's a combination of things...

How difficult it must be to have your birthday to be on Christmas day!!! Not only are people "buying" for YOUR birthday but it's CHRISTMAS too!!! So WHAT to do???

He only ruined Christmas IF YOU ALLOWED HIM TO DO SO...if you let his nastiness swallow you? That's YOUR fault.

Maybe instead of keeping your distance you should have COMMUNICATED with him and said - okay - I see you are upset - want to talk about it? If he said NO - then say fine - you go off and do your thing - let me know when you want to talk....

Your being a snot didn't help the situation in my eyes...it only fed the flames.

I don't know anything about you, your life or your marriage. But I will tell you this - just because HE was being a snot, doesn't mean YOU need to be one. Yeah, I admit it's EASY to get sucked in. You love him so you want him happy. However, you can't always just REACT when he is foul...

Get those lines of communication open, girl. Find out what he expected. Find out what was bothering him. I would also tell him that he owes our child an apology. Just because he was foul, doesn't mean he takes it out on his child. For that? He owes him an apology.

GOOD LUCK!!

My husband always seemed to become a real ba$tard at Christmas and around our birthdays (his and mine are a week apart) and I couldn't figure out what was going on. After many years of this and learning about the dynamics of his family I realized that he just had this feeling of impending disappoointment and dread as his birthday and Christmas approached. His family was highly dysfuncitonal - his mom had suffered many bouts of deep depression, requiring in-patient hospitalizations. She was very self-centered and when not in deep emotional self-torture she was emotionally abusive to my husband, her son. His father was overwhelmed by caring for 3 kids and was distant or physically abusive in angry outbursts. My husband was a twin and his twin brother was his mother's favorite, his sister was his fathers. So holidays and birthdays brought on this emotion that he couldn't shake. He was miserable to us all - before we had kids he was horrible. As the kids came and we watched Christmas through their eyes, and built our own memories my husband's foreboding feelings of dread were replaced with sweet memories of his own young family. My kids are 13 & 16 and he's so much better a father and husband now than he once was - expecially at Christmas and birthdays.

Why not ask eachother about favorite & worst holiday memorites - see what comes to the surface. Hopefully he'll mature and grow and your Christmastime will get better each year.

Christmas birthdays are a pain in the butt. Mine is Christmas eve and again this year I got the question 'do you want a birthday gift or a Christmas gift, I can't afford both?' I should be used to it but it stings everytime. If it weren't for the fact that facebook tells my friends about my birthday they usually forget. It suuuucks.

Sometimes birthdays remind people they are getting older or they start feeling OLD because of the number of years. He may have some unresolved issues from his youth that he now feels are immpossible because of his age and responsibilities. Sometimes we do not even talk about a closely held dream because we don't want to be told it's a bad idea. Whether it's being a star althete or writing the great Americian novel or hiking the old spice trails to China or going back to school once we hit a certain age and are married with kids we feel we can't do it because we are too old to accomplish this feat.
Sometimes even though we are happy, it's depressing.

Well, it's the day after and I'm sure the cake is already eaten, so I'm assuming it's a rhetorical question. What I'm wondering is why he acted like a jerk on Christmas, enough to make your son cry.

Sounds like you need to take your 4 year old out and let your husband be lonely for a while without his family. He owes you and your son an apology.

Dawn

My SS is also a Christmas baby and we put all his presents for his birthday in birthday paper, give him a birthday card, etc. It's hard sometimes but what can you do?

I would talk to him in a calm moment and ask him what the heck that was about, especially if he's not usually such a jerk. Was he overwhelmed? Tired? If he needed a break, he could have asked for one.

This is just me so take this with a grain of salt - if my husband were ever to be an a** on Christmas his butt would be out the door (at least for a day or 2). I don't care if it's his birthday or he's playing in the NBA. That's complete b.s.

You don't mess up a little kid's Christmas. Good grief that would upset me.

Luckily my husband feels the way I do about Christmas.