Navigating the holidays with a partner can be a tough thing. You have to make your own traditions, but you also know that, unfortunately, your own family might be disappointed to not see you at times they’re used to.
Hopefully, though, you gain fun new memories with another family.
This woman, though, had the opposite experience. She usually spent the holidays with her own family, but after being with her significant other for awhile, they decided she would spend Christmas with his family.
She bought them gifts based on what she thought they would like, and bought nice generic gifts for the family members she didn’t know as well.
This year I went to my fiancé’s house for Christmas. It was my first time going, as we would typically go to my family’s house instead.
I got a (rather pricey) gift for my fiancé “Dan” related to his hobbies, I got nice gifts for “Dan’s” parents based off of things I’d talked about with them before, and I got a small pack of chocolates for each of Dan’s other relatives (I didn’t know them that well).
I wasn’t expecting many gifts from Dan’s relative’s because I didn’t know many of them that well, but I was certainly expecting more than I got.
In return, she got coal. 18 pieces of it.
At first, I was excited when I saw that there was a big pile of gifts for me. However, once I opened the first one it was just a piece of coal.
Everyone laughed, and I just kind of laughed along thinking it was a gag gift and that the other gifts would be different.
But every single one turned out to be coal. All 18 of them.
When she got upset and said she regretted missing time with her own family to be treated like this, her partner said it was just something they did to new people and she needed to get over it.
I started to get upset, so I cried and lashed out at Dan. But he calmly explained apparently this is a longstanding tradition in his family where they gift coal to newcomers who are celebrating Christmas with them for the first time.
He explained that it’s just easier that way since all the relatives who might not know the newcomer well don’t have to stress over finding a gift, and it’s a fun experience for the newcomer as well.
I told Dan I couldn’t believe I skipped my own family’s celebration for this and left. But now Dan and some of his family are blowing up my phone saying I embarrassed him in front of his relatives and that I made it awkward for everyone. So aita?
Does she, though? Is this a normal thing? I bet Reddit has some thoughts on the matter!
The top comment says this was humiliation and OP deserves better.
This person agrees it was mean spirited.
They say everyone but OP really sucks here.
And maybe OP should take this as a wakeup call.
No one thinks this is a nice tradition at all.
I don’t know why anyone would think this would be a good idea.
It’s downright awful, to be honest.