Holiday traditions are great, and in today’s story, one friend group has a holiday tradition of booking an Airbnb together and doing a secret Santa gift exchange.

The problem is that this year, part of the group kept the Airbnb location a secret, and it turns out they were actually lying.

The friends didn’t react the way they expected when they found out the truth.

Let’s see how the story unfolds…

AITA for not reacting properly to my friend group’s “Suprise AirBnB” booking?

[Context] every year our friend group hosts a Secret Santa event.

A major part of this tradition involves booking an Airbnb where most of us (around 12 people) plan to stay, though not everyone ends up sleeping there.

Typically, we spend a few hours on Discord searching for Airbnbs that meet our criteria—location, capacity, budget, etc.—and bookmarking options for further review.

Half of the group went silent.

This year, our entire friend group followed the usual process, spending hours searching through listings and bookmarking potential choices to revisit later.

Then, about two weeks ago, half of the group (let’s call them Group B) suddenly stopped communicating with us (Group A) and went completely silent on Discord for an entire week.

This abrupt change left Group A confused, prompting us to ask questions about what was going on and why Group B had stopped communicating with us.

The leader of Group B booked an Airbnb.

Suddenly, a few days later, Group B’s main planner—the person who typically leads our event coordination—announced that he had booked a “surprise” Airbnb that was within budget and located in a great area.

While Group A appreciated the effort, we requested more details, wanting at least some basic information about the place.

However, the planner refused to provide any specifics, repeatedly responding with “trust me” and informing us that each participant would need to contribute $60 (more details on that later).

It wasn’t really an Airbnb.

As days passed, Group A grew increasingly confused and uneasy about this Airbnb, which we were expected to help pay for, without any assurance or photos of what we were actually funding.

Then, a friend close to some members of Group B (we’ll call him “J”) let us know that the planner had recently purchased a house where everyone in Group B would be moving in.

While we recognized this as an impressive feat for Group B, we were still confused by their continued insistence on presenting it as an Airbnb that we needed to contribute 60$/person toward.

The truth finally came out…

With this information, Group A tried to get confirmation from Group B, but they wouldn’t budge, even as the Secret Santa event came closer.

J also told us that part of the so-called “surprise” was that we wouldn’t actually need to pay anything, since the planner owned the house.

Finally, last night, Group B revealed the truth: they had moved into a newly acquired house, and it would be the location for our Secret Santa event.

Now everyone is unhappy.

Group A wasn’t thrilled about the week of lies and secrecy over something we had initially believed was an Airbnb we were expected to fund.

Group B is not happy with us, claiming that we acted essentially like babies for not being more supportive of their actions in getting this house for our event.

AITA for making them feel disappointed in us by reacting in a disgruntled/annoyed manner?

It would’ve been better if Group B had been honest from the beginning.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story…

Group B messed up.

Group B is “sketchy.”

This reader would be upset too.

Don’t trust Group B.

This reader thinks Group B is acting like children.

They should’ve just stuck with tradition and rented an Airbnb.

What a weird thing to do.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.