One fellow Redditor called the move a “tacky cop-out”
(Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)What was intended to be a touching sentiment soon turned sour after parents-to-be used their baby scan in a gift exchange with their family.
A family hosted their annual Christmas gift exchange amongst the adults, where they all agreed to spend $20 on each other and shared a Google document for inspiration on what each person would like to receive.
“When it came to swapping presents, my sister-in-law Kelsey and brother Kyle asked to go last as they had something special they wanted everyone to open together,” the father-to-be’s sister explained on Reddit’s AITA forum.
To the family’s dismay, Kelsey and Kyle “spent $5 per person” on a “sonogram picture in a cheap dollar store frame.”
There was also “a note saying ‘$35 has been donated to the baby in your name’ and a 2XL shirt with puffy paint that said BABY BELLA 2022.”
The group gave their congratulations and spoke about the baby for a while before the dad turned the attention back to the gifts.
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“‘Do you want to finish the exchange? This is great news, but we have to be heading home so if you want to get the rest of the presents,’ he said.
To their surprise, Kelsey responded: “‘That is the gift.’”
This prompted an argument to break out between Kyle and his dad.
He returned into the room and announced: “Everyone can take their gifts back for Kyle and Kelsey, because this is bulls**t, and they knew exactly what they were doing.”
“A few people did take their gifts back and left,” the Redditor explained. “But the rest of us sort of sat there until it calmed down and then went home.”
In a bid to make amends, Kyle showed up at his sister’s house a few days later to apologise with a “real” gift.
“‘Kelsey has been crying about it for days now, so thank Dad for ruining the surprise,’” he said, before asking his sister whether she liked the surprise to which she candidly responded, “no.”
The Redditor slammed their idea at the gift exchange as “cheap”, saying that it “ ruined the spirit of the exchange.”
Fellow Redditors seemingly agreed. One person said the “dad was correct that it was a BS move.”
They added: “How is it considered appropriate to gift oneself the money that was supposed to be spent on gifts for others?
While another blasted the move as a “tacky cop-out.”
“‘Donation in your name’ is 90% of the time a tacky cop-out in the first place,” they said. “They donated the money to themselves. What the actual heck.”
Another Redditor added: “If they wanted to save money they could have so easily just not signed up for the gift exchange and still busted out their cheap pregnancy announcement as a bonus gift for everyone.”
Ouch.
