Mom On Reddit Is Devastated After Husband Opened Christmas Gifts With Son Without Her

There are only so many magical years a parent gets when their kids still believe in Santa Claus, and perhaps one of the most special is that first year. So you can understand why this mom fully believes her husband “ruined” her Christmas by getting up early with their son to open gifts without her. It was a special moment that was taken from her, and she took to Reddit for some moral support that her husband wasn’t willing to offer.

The mom in question, who has a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old baby, took to the “TrueOffMyChest” sub-Reddit forum on Christmas Day to share how she felt her morning had been ruined by her husband. “This is the first Christmas where my toddler understands a lot more about what’s going on and we’ve been talking about Santa, decorating the tree, wrapping family gifts together etc. My husband has been talking a lot about building family traditions for the kids, which I thought was lovely,” she wrote in her viral Reddit post.

On Christmas Eve, they stuck with her own German tradition of opening gifts from the family that night and left gifts from Santa Claus under the tree. “I had a rough night with the baby, so slept a little longer than usual this morning (Christmas morning), but not unreasonable I thought — I woke at 7:45. The toddler had woken at 6am and my husband had gotten up to him. I got up to discover that my husband had opened up the presents from Santa with my toddler already, which has left me devastated,” she wrote.

After missing her son’s first Christmas morning of opening presents, the heartbroken mom wrote that she “felt so excluded and robbed of seeing the joy on my child’s face opening up the gifts I had picked out for him.”

“He didn’t wait until I woke up, or wake me up if the toddler couldn’t wait,” she continued. “My husband commented that it was a lovely father son moment, which drove the knife in further — clearly I’m an afterthought when he thinks of family. I’ve been holding back tears all day for the sake of the toddler.”

Social media users rallied to tell this mom that she was absolutely in the right for being upset, without question. “Dude created a ‘father son moment’ upon the ashes of the ‘family bonding moment.’ What a nitwit,” wrote one person. “Not an overreaction at all. Tell him how you feel about what he did and talk this out with him. He is not the only parents of those kids and it should have been a moment for you all to share not just him,” wrote another, while this person added, “Oh wow. He like did the main event without you. I’m a month postpartum and definitely would not have been okay with that. Emotional & exhausted or not, not cool man, not cool.”

A few people on X, formerly Twitter, said that they wouldn’t be able to look at their partner the same way if they were in the same position.

The good news for this mom is that her toddler will have other Christmas mornings, and he will barely remember this year. He will hopefully have more years of opening his Santa gifts with his mom, years of magic and fun and joy over the holidays. The bad news is, she won’t forget this year. And that is just a really bitter pill to swallow.