Sometimes the things you refuse the hardest end up becoming your favorite traditions.

So, what would you do if you firmly told your kids no to a ridiculous, noisy Christmas hat, only to receive it as a gift weeks later? Would you make it disappear at the end of the season? Or would it become one of your new favorite things?

In the following story, one father finds himself in this situation and is sad when the hat is ruined. Here’s how it all played out.

The Abomination Hat

This story goes back a few years to one evening when I (M, then about 50) was doing the pre-Christmas grocery shopping with my kids.

As we went through the supermarket, we passed the aisle with the Christmas decorations for sale, and my children found a hat.

It was a bright red Santa hat with a battery-operated mechanism that, when you pressed a button on the rim, made the top wiggle back and forth, lights flashed, and it played Jingle Bells.

My children thought it was wonderful and put it in the shopping cart.

I said, “No, no, that hat is an abomination!” and put it back on the shelf.

His kids had a good surprise for him on Christmas morning.

Fast forward to Christmas morning.

By family tradition, we select one person each year to be Santa; that person puts on a Santa hat, selects the gifts from under the tree one by one, and hands them out so we can all share in the fun.

This year I was picked to be Santa and my children insisted on selecting the first gift, which was from them to me.

When I opened the box, inside was the abomination hat. They insisted I wear it while the gifts were being given out.

That is how the abomination hat became an essential part of our family Christmas celebrations, from a petty act of revenge by my children on their uncultured father.

I was actually very disappointed some years later when one of the cats tinkled on the hat, and it finally broke down.

Hilarious! The kids must’ve laughed so hard at this.

Let’s check out if the readers over at Reddit have any similar stories.

It reminds this person of their father.

Here’s someone who thinks everyone should have this sort of tradition.

This reader wants to hear more stories.

According to this comment, they have the same hat.

That sounds like so much fun! It’s great that it became a family tradition.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.