Christmas is a celebration spent with family and close friends. But of course, not everyone in the family gets along. These people share the Christmas when they finally put an entitled family member in their place. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
Winter Break With His Naracissistic Mom Part 1
“My parents divorced when I was just in Kindergarten so I was no more than six years old. My mom got full custody of us and she was a typical narcissistic parent. Ever since the divorce, she would always tell us how it was not her fault we didn’t have enough money for things and blamed my dad. For example, if there was nothing to eat for breakfast and we complained like small children do when they are hungry, she snapped, ‘It’s your father’s fault, so cry to him.’
I just learned never to complain and spent my childhood taking care of her. My sister and I were trained from when I was about eight (my sister 10) to come right home from school and do our homework and clean the house and take care of ourselves. ‘Don’t ask mom to make dinner, make it yourself, and all of the chores so Mom doesn’t have to do anything.’ It sounds bizarre but we thought that was normal as well as being told on a daily basis we were worthless.
It got worse during my senior year of high school. My grandma died a few months before that summer and my mom quit her job and blew through the money my grandma left her before the summer was over. She refused to get another job and kept coming up with excuses not to work like, ‘I need a break.’ ‘Get off my back.’ ‘I hurt my leg.’
All while she was going out drinking with her friend and acting like a carefree teenager.
Flash forward to my freshman year of college, I was pretty much able to swing the cost of tuition and room and board since I filed my taxes and FAFSA as soon as my w2’s came in so I had a decent amount of grants.
During my first year of college, I almost became unable to receive financial aid for my second year of college. Why? My W2’s were mailed to my home address and my mom being the caring and supportive mother she was, shredded them and threw them in the trash. I found out because my sister was home that weekend and saw it. My mom denied it until my sister called her out on it. At this point, I learned that my mom had not been helping out my sister at all with tuition as she claimed and my sister had mentioned it to my dad who had called her out and demanded to know where the child support was going. My mom insisted he wasn’t paying her enough money and that was why she couldn’t help us out with college.
During my second year of college, my w2s were once again sent home and my mom once again ‘accidentally’ threw them in the trash. I had to file my tax return late that year and as a result, my FAFSA was filed late so I wasn’t able to get the full amount I was receiving before.
Any time I complained to her about money or no food in the house it was, ‘Complain to your father.’
At the end of the summer, I had saved a thousand dollars but the school wouldn’t let me move into the dorm unless I paid 50 percent upfront which was about 10k. I didn’t know what to do as all summer the university had told me I was fine and then on move-in day told me I couldn’t move into the dorm. I called my dad in a panic and he spoke to someone who agreed to give me 24 hours. I moved in and the next day my dad showed up first thing with a coffee and a donut for me and told me not to worry: he was going to fix this once and for all. We went from office to office on campus and he cosigned a loan (which he later paid off for me) and then he paid the balance on my tuition for the loan didn’t cover.
He then took me out to lunch and told me the truth: my mom never helped my sister with her tuition (my sister had graduated the summer before my junior year of college). My sister later confirmed this but was not surprised my mom had lied. My dad had cosigned a loan to help my sister out (which he later paid off for her) and my sister was able to get a scholarship and do coop to pay for her last two years.
He also advised me that my mom was not so poorly off: as part of the divorce settlement he had to pay the mortgage and property taxes on our house and even though my sister was now out on her own he was still paying her the same amount of child support of about 2K a month despite the fact that I was living on campus for 75 percent of the year and my mom was not given me a dime.
I was hurt to think my mom was just living off my child support and constantly making me feel guilty for wanting anything or for not being able to cater to her every whim. I thought about how bad she made me feel grown-up and made me feel worthless when in fact, had it not been for me or my sister she would have not had a roof over her head after the divorce.
He asked me to grant him access to my account so he could prove my mom was not paying for college and that I was. He asked me how I would feel if he took care of college instead of paying my mom child support.
Sounded good to me. He even told me I could spend my school breaks at his house instead of my mom’s.
I called my mom and told her my dad had taken care of the issue and she had no remorse. She told me it was my own fault for not planning my finances better and for wasting away my money all summer. I just played it dumb and said she was right but pointed out I had done what she told me to do and complained to my dad.”
Winter Break With His Naracissistic Mom Part 2
“A month later, my mom called me up ticked off. My dad had spoken with the courts and there was going to be a hearing in their divorce case. My dad had proven that my mom had not been paying for mine nor my sister’s tuition for college and that was the very reason my dad was obligated to pay child support till I was done college. Since I was living on campus, it didn’t make sense to pay her child support when I was not living at home most of the year and she has given me one penny. My dad told the judge he would gladly pay for me to finish college but he was not going to pay my mom any more child support, or the mortgage on the house. If my mom didn’t want to take over the mortgage, they could sell the house and I could live with him over my breaks.
My mom was freaking out over this and calling me selfish. I just reminded her that my tuition must cost a lot more than what she got in child support since she was never able to help me with the costs of school. She just kept laying guilt trips on me about how I was selfish because she didn’t get to go to college right after high school and how she never got to have four carefree years of college. I pointed out to her that she had not worked since my grandma died about three years ago and that I was working and going to school at that time while she got to live a carefree life.
She pretty much ripped me a new one at that point. She tried to get back at my dad by not paying utilities on the house to make it seem like she needed the money. She then told me that the electricity and water were now shut off so if I wanted to come home for winter break, I needed to help her out. I just told her I would miss her but that I would just go to my dad’s for winter break. She was angry and cried about how selfish I was for not wanting to come home for Christmas. Well, the Christmas before, my present was throwing out many of my personal belongings. Why? My mom was ticked off at me that I didn’t want to come home one weekend to help her clean because to get home, I had to take two buses, two trains, spend $20 one way and wait for her to hopefully remember to pick me up at the train station which was a whole 20-minute drive for her after I had traveled for four to five hours because I had finals. So I told her I would help clean for the holidays once I came home for winter break. Her response? She took all of my things threw them in boxes and threw them out on the front lawn. Most of my things were destroyed by being left on in the rain.
I told my mom I would come and visit her over my winter break once she got the utilities turned on. I told my dad what was going on and he said he and my stepmom, half brother, and sister were thrilled I was going to stay with them for winter break and he could get me a job in his office as well for winter break. He also called my mom and reminded her the child support had not stopped, and they were going to list the house in a few months so what was this nonsense about the utilities being shut off? And with that, she magically came up with the money to turn them back on.
Not too long after that, my mom lost her child support and was told by the judge that she better cooperate with the sale of the house and keep up with the utility bills, so it would sell. Her boyfriend moved in with her till the house sold and she moved to another time zone.
The real kicker? It was cheaper for my dad to pay college costs than to pay her child support!
To summarize, my mom abused and exploited me and I got my revenge by causing her to lose her child support and free rent by doing what she told me to do for years: complain to my father.”
Wife’s Best Friend Part 1
“My wife’s best friend, I’ll call ‘Karen’ makes everyone, even my wife sometimes, miserable. She also thinks she is smarter than everyone and just stuck up enough to believe no one would dare cross her.
So, a friend of ours, I’ll call him, ‘Bill’, bought a piece of property next door to us. He had a bad car accident in November and lived an hour away. He made me a legal agent of the property, which means I have almost as much power as he does (Think property manager). It has a small house on it that is unoccupied, but I keep an eye on things. He bought the property only because next to the house is a big asphalt parking lot. It used to be a lot for a small used car company. His reasoning was that during the bad winter months he could park equipment and trucks from his other companies there. So he also had me put up huge ‘No parking. Violators will be towed at owner’s expense’ signs all around it.
So on Sunday, I was elbow deep into an RC submersible when my wife burst into my study yelling for me to listen to something. I took the phone and guess who was doing a live video? Karen. She was talking about how she was going away for a few days for the holidays because she was so stressed out from always giving people advice and helping them through their problems etc. She talked about how she parked her 46-foot fifth wheel $35,000 camper next door to me and seeing Bill was unreachable this week, I would have to look at it for the next three days as a reminder that she was not only smarter, but 10 moves ahead of me because I wouldn’t loan her a truck and it cost her money to rent one. Turns out she told her husband, who was gone during the week for work, that she had Bill’s permission to put it there. So early Sunday morning, he towed it over there.
I was ticked off, she has a tendency to lie so I went outside, and there it was. Parked right there, in the middle of the lot was her camper. I actually smiled because I had a perfect plan. As being a manager of the property, I also had a right to have any vehicle towed off there, including that one. I had two options: A. Call the garage that was owned by a nice guy. He didn’t charge the state maximum for the tow and storage fees. Then there was option B: Call another garage that didn’t care to charge you the max in fees and always did. So I went with garage B. I called the guy, gave him my name, and told him about the camper. He had it gone in less than a half-hour.
I didn’t tell her it was towed until days later.”
Wife’s Best Friend Part 2
“I waited from Sunday afternoon till Tuesday morning, while she was live-streaming from her car, talking about how was going to go visit her camper for another laugh. Then I got on live, to which my wife sent her a message to get on my live stream and posted the link to my page.
When she was viewing, I said, ‘Hey, Karen. Hope you had a wonderful time. I have to tell you something, I had your camper towed. With me being the properties manager and Bill being unavailable, I had to have it towed. We can’t let people think they can just park on there illegally. XYZ tow has the camper. I was going to call you Sunday but you seemed so stressed out that I thought you deserved the break. I mean the camper is safe, that’s all that matters right?’
Well, my social media page lit up like a Christmas tree. As I had hoped those watching her stream followed because, well they were curious too, and then the messages started. A few condemned me, but most were supportive. Some thought it was about time someone showed her that she wasn’t all-powerful and no one was scared of her. Then it went quiet.
Now a normal person might’ve been angry but understandable, but she went the wounded Karen route. That afternoon she got back on again. She was fake crying, about how it was going to cost her over $2,000 in fees because her husband wouldn’t be back till Friday to tow it back and if could someone please do it for her. And that if she started a gofundme page, would people donate to help her pay the fees. The answers to that were between ‘No’ and ‘Heck no!’ But hey, she didn’t threaten to sue me at least, right?”
Entitled Aunt Part 1
“My older sister, let’s call her ‘Ria’, and our mom always had a very difficult relationship ever since I could remember. Ria has always been headstrong and not afraid to ask questions. My mom was very traditional and put family above everything first. She was the second eldest of nine children and moved from the Philippines to the US. She grew up dirt poor in a small province and experienced first-hand the hardship that comes with taking care of a big family. She was the first of her family to graduate college and has always valued education as a means to get out of poverty. She has paid for four of her siblings to go to college and has also paid for several of her sibling’s children to go to good schools in the Philippines.
Ria had more exposure to the extended family than I did (she was born in the Philippines, I was born in the US). As she got older, she was very outspoken about how she did not agree with my mom financially supporting some of her family because Ria felt as though they were abusing my mom’s generosity, especially since mom was frugal with our expenditures here in the US.
When Ria was in her last year of high school, she had a bad falling out with my mom and moved out. They did not speak for five years. At that time, Ria worked full-time and paid her way through college without any help from my parents at all. Fast forward a few years at my high school graduation, I invited Ria, who attended and ended up reconciling with my mom. Things were still rocky but they had a much better relationship.
Two years ago, my mom passed away. Unknown to me at the time, Ria had quietly taken over the continued financial support for my mom’s youngest sister, Jana’s cost of living, and maintaining the college fund for Jana’s daughter. She also took care of the funeral arrangements and handled the estate.
Last year, Ria and I decided to spend the holidays in the Philippines. One of our visits was to Jana’s place. Little did I know that things were about to hit the fan when we sat down for dinner. After small talk, the topic of my mom came up and this was how that conversation went.
Jana: ‘Such a shame your mom passed away. We will miss her.”
Ria: ‘Yes.’
Jana: ‘Ria, why did you stop talking to her? Why did you leave her? You should be ashamed; that’s not how you treat family. Now, your mom could’ve raised you better. You always were too headstrong you know, that’s not ladylike, you shouldn’t be so aggressive. You need to be softer. How are you going to get a man otherwise?’
Ria was quiet.
Jana (turned to me): ‘Don’t be like your sister, ok? Be a good daughter. Do you have a boyfriend yet? You don’t want to get too old like Ria and not have your own family.’
Before I could speak, Ria asked her own questions.”
Entitled Aunt Part 2
Ria said, ‘Why did you drop out and decide to get pregnant when mom was paying for your college? Did you really think that a businessman would leave his wife to take care of you? If you wanted to be a trophy wife, you should’ve just said so instead of wasting my mom’s hard-earned money.’
At this point, I just decided to watch because Jana was starting to irritate me and Ria has been known to do epic take-downs.
Jana was now enraged and said, ‘How dare you come into MY house, eat MY food, and disrespect ME!’
Ria calmly said, ‘Technically it’s my mom’s house, you have food because my mom has been supporting you for the better part of 15 years and you disrespected her by wasting all the opportunities she worked hard to give to you.’
Jana: ‘I don’t NEED your attitude or anything from you. You’re disrespectful. Get the heck out of my house.’
Ria got up with a smile and said, ‘You sure you don’t need ANYTHING from me. You don’t want ANYTHING from me. I want to confirm that I heard you correctly.’
Jana: ‘I don’t need anything from you, I can take care of myself and MY family and how DARE you imply otherwise! Get the heck out of my house and your father will hear about this!’
Ria looked at me and said, ‘You heard her, let’s go.’
Now, I was surprised by how calmly Ria was taking the diatribe because I’ve seen her and my mom get into massive shouting matches. More confused than anything, I followed her to the car.
Ria: ‘You heard her right, she doesn’t need ANYTHING from me.’
It began to dawn on me what my sister was about to do and said, ‘Yeah, right.’
We got back to the hotel and my sister promptly stopped the auto-transfer of funds for Jana’s account. We then spent the rest of the week lounging by the beach and hanging out with other cousins. That’s how we heard that Jana was just now realizing what actually happens when you run out of money. I called up Ria shortly after to give her an update.
R: ‘What? Did she run out of money that quick? There was enough in there to last her the year.’
Me: ‘Oh. Did you tell her that?’
R: ‘Eh, basic math.’
Me: ‘Will she lose the house?’
R: ‘Nah. It’s paid for. As long as she doesn’t do something stupid, she should have a roof over her head.’
Me: ‘Did you also close her kid’s college fund?’
R: ‘Nope. Not gonna punish the kid for her mom’s stupidity. But that’s all she gets so if she messes it up, she messes it up.'”
Step-Siblings And Their Bratty Kids Part 1
“Earlier in the year, my dad quite sensibly suggested that with the size of our family Christmas party, we skip a generation with gifts to ease the financial strain as the extended family grew. At the time, I was struggling with my business and athletic career and my wife (then girlfriend) was working on her second master’s degree, so I suggested names from a hat, but he wanted to spoil all his grandchildren.
I said, ‘Fair enough. I’ll chip in for Oma’s cruise and buy gifts for my step-siblings, but don’t expect anything grand.’
My six-year-old niece, Tammy had brought a Nintendo DS, and all the kids were struggling to see/play it together, so I foolishly offered to loan them mine to lighten the load. Tammy agreed to share with her 12-year-old cousin Jane, and her seven-year-old brother, Bubba agreed to share with his nine-year-old cousin, Tim. Having stupidly deprived myself of my means to escape social obligations, I went to the living room to acquire that much older cure for not wanting to deal with other people; adult beverages.
Not even having had time to pour a dram, my trained ear picked up from the kids’ room the unmistakable sound of one human being pummeling another. I politely suggested to my stepbrother and Tammy and Bubba’s father, Robert that he might want to go have a look, but he waved it off. So, I went to investigate.
I walked in to see Tim was managing to strike Bubba while attempting to play my DS with his other hand. Then on the other side of the room, Jane had simply wrested the DS from Tammy, who was now sitting in the corner crying.
I shouted for my stepsister, Martha who is also Jane and Tim’s mom, informing her that if she didn’t get in here to break things up before I count to 10, I would have a stern conversation with them. She turned up and separated the kids and I retrieved my DS. Instead of giving Tim a lesson on sharing and not hitting people, she proceeded to berate Bubba (the kid who was beaten) for not simply giving up the DS and making her son look bad. Jane simply let out a tweenage sigh for the ages and tossed the other DS into the crying Tammy.
I then excused myself from the party, thankful that I didn’t have to provide gifts for any of those little demons.
Six months later, I got a call from Robert.
Robert: ‘Hey, while I really appreciated the gifts last year, you should really get something for the kids this year instead. Christmas is all about the children after all.’
Me: ‘No, I really don’t want to.’
Robert: ‘That’s a mean thing to say about my kids, don’t you care about them?’
Me: ‘You cared about them so much that at the last party, you couldn’t be bothered to break up a fight where your son was being beaten.’
Robert: ‘Tim is a good kid, Martha said he just had a bad day.’
Me: ‘He was literally beating your child. You didn’t put pics on social media for a week because of the bruises. If Tim were an adult and had that kind of bad day, I’d have a stern conversation with him and convince him peacefully to lay on the floor until the police arrived.’
Robert: ‘Well, Sis and I were talking and we think you should buy stuff for the kids next year instead of us.’
Me: ‘Well I’m happy not to buy you anything, but I’m not getting anything for Martha’s little demons especially when she encourages that behavior.’
Robert: ‘Well if you aren’t going to get something for all the kids, you shouldn’t get anything at all. It’s not right if you don’t treat them equally.’
Me: ‘Done deal.’
Everything thing seemed fine until a few months later, about two weeks before Christmas, when I received an unusual email from my dad.”
Step-Siblings And Their Bratty Kids Part 2
“Just two weeks before Christmas, I got an email from my dad with links to various toys (mostly from Toys “R” Us, which still existed at the time). When I called him back to ask what the links were for, he said, ‘Those are gifts for the kids for Christmas.’
Me: ‘That’s cool if you’re getting them that. I’ll see them when the kids open them.’
Dad: ‘No, that’s for you to get them.’
Me: ‘I don’t buy for that generation remember? And I already sent you my contribution to Oma’s cruise.’
Dad: ‘You need to get stuff for the kids. Don’t you want them to look up to you as an uncle?’
Me: ‘Not really.’
Dad: ‘Not the point, Christmas is about the children. If you don’t get them this stuff, I won’t put your name on the card for Oma.’
Me: ‘That’s a terrible thing to do, considering I already paid into that.’
Dad: ‘Will you get the stuff or not?’
Me: ‘Well, guess my name isn’t going on the card then. This will cost me more than a month’s rent, so you can take this list and grease it up real nice -‘
Dad (Interrupting): ‘Calm your jets, this is what they want.’
Me: ‘I’ll get them a token something but I’m not taking out a loan.’
Dad: ‘Fine, just make it something they enjoy.’
Me: ‘If what I get doesn’t put a giant smile on each and every one of their faces, I’ll buy you dinner at a steakhouse of your choosing.’
Dad: ‘That’s the spirit. Talk to you later.’
So, Christmas rolled around and my wife and I had bought not just one, but four gifts for each of the little ones, and wrapped them all beautifully. We suggested since we brought several gifts for each of the kids, ‘why don’t they open one each before dinner so they have something to do while they wait.’
Their parents agreed as it gave them more of a reason to ignore their kids and talk about them instead, so they sent us off to hand out gifts to their kids, Martha was looking especially smug. As they began to unwrap them, I prepared the camera as my wife went for our coats, and I stuck around just long enough to immortalize on film the kids’ faces as they see what their gift was.
Less than a minute later, the first blast from the airhorn (Tim’s gift) could be heard in the hallway as my wife and I was leaving. I have no idea how much of the bulk pack of silly string (Tammy’s gift) or the 36 rainbow pack of off-brand sharpies (Bubba’s gift) ended up on the walls, but I do know they repainted the place the next month. Whether or not the pile of slap-on bracelets we got for Jane ended up on the wrists and legs of the parents as they tried to contain the other three will be left to the imagination.
But I’m certain at some point they did notice the pretty gold envelope addressed to ‘The parents’ on the tree. Inside was a very pretty card, blank but for the following note: ‘This was a warning shot from off the top of my head. I’ve got a whole year to get creative for next time. Merry Christmas, E.’
I never bought anyone steak dinner, however I enjoyed several more Christmas’s with my Oma and Dad until they passed and I stopped seeing that side of the family. No mention of this incident or gifts for the kids was ever made again.”
Delusional Sister-In-Law Part 1
“My twin brother (25) has been with his wife since we were 15, and they’ve been married for the last year. Since day one, my sister-in-law (SIL) hasn’t been a fan of my family. She and my brother met doing the same after-school club, a club that my best friend happened to also be in. She always used to say that my SIL always complained about my family (my mother, father, and myself) and how we all treated her terribly, though when asked, she would never go into detail because there was no detail. In fact, for the first few years of their relationship, my SIL was the daughter my mother wished she’d had (which strained our relationship unsurprisingly). She was happy enough to be around us, and my parents always made sure to include her on family occasions such as our birthdays.
The years went by and my brother and SIL stayed together through universities 150 miles apart and moved in together at about the six-year mark of their relationship. I lived at home for a year after my brother moved out, and during that time, witnessed numerous occasions of my brother being around for a dinner that both he and his girlfriend had been invited to with just him attending for a variety of cheap excuses that had been cut short because my SIL rang my brother up telling him he had to come home because of X, Y and Z. While some of these may have been genuine, every time he was around for over half an hour, he got the calls and messages, saying her world was imploding if he didn’t come home right this instant. I think my parents politely excused the behavior as young love, but it was an obvious shun. My mother especially was cut off.
Every month she’d invite my SIL out for a girl’s day and was always told no.
After the wedding, which none of our side of the family was allowed to be involved in. Not an issue, though it was hurtful that we were told that nothing ‘family’ was happening (ie. dances, speeches) but they in fact were with only my SIL’s side of the family while we just sat there awkwardly. I got a few messages from mutual friends of myself and my brother asking what the drama was between us and my SIL, who had evidently been telling people all night that we had been awful throughout the wedding process, and she and her new husband were on the verge of going no contact with us. Something we hadn’t heard at all from my brother or her since we were very much still in contact with them (well, him).
A couple had thought it was odd that she was saying this, and forwarded screenshots of my SIL telling them full stories of complete lies about things that had happened between her and us. My favourite was the supposed time when my father (the most placid man in Britain) stormed around to their house demanding they give him hundreds in cash to cover his gambling debts. My father has never gambled anything more than a couple of pounds on the lottery.
I’m not a petty person, and so didn’t go ballistic, but the next time I saw my parents I said that it seemed like my SIL was spreading potentially harmful lies. They both said they knew that she didn’t seem to like them, but had decided many years ago to try and kill her with kindness if only to not give her any real ammunition against them. I decided to sit on what I had evidence-wise unless my SIL did something major.
The ‘major’ came over Christmas.
For years and years, my brother and SIL had rotated between her family and my family. This year was supposed to be the day with my family. They lived in the same town as both their families, so it wouldn’t be a massive journey for anyone to go anywhere. I lived with my partner about half an hour from my family, and we were also going to be spending lunch with my family.
We got there bright and early on Christmas Day to find my brother there alone. I asked where my SIL was, and I was told that she was having a family emergency but would be over before the meal. No issues there, ‘family emergency’ or not. We all got to prepping the meal, and my brother’s phone was ringing the whole time. He stopped answering after a period of time and a particularly long call prior that he went outside for, but confirmed that it was his wife, however it was just her phone messing up and consistently calling the last number in the call list. A bit of a bad excuse, but whatever. The ringing eventually stopped.
By this point, my brother was off playing with one of my dad’s old cars and everything was in the oven, so we chilled out for a while, and looked on social media at all the cheesy Christmas present posts. I and my partner were just scrolling away comparing friends’ presents when my partner’s screen came up with a post by my SIL into a Facebook group called something like ‘Murderous Mother-In-Laws Support Group’ (we assumed that we were blocked from seeing her posts, but she’d let my partner slip through the net) that had only been posted 5 minutes before. And we couldn’t believe what the post said.”
Delusional Sister-In-Law Part 2
“The post said something like: ‘My husband is forcing me to go to his horrid family’s Christmas dinner. They make me do all of the cooking on my own and then tell me, it’s horrible. His sister even assaulted me the last time I went to their house, and she’s just been kicked out of rehab so is back there again. I’m scared every day that my husband is going to believe their lies about me and leave me. I’d rather kill myself than do this. Can I get some support ladies?’
What a liar! We all cook, with my father doing the lion’s share if anyone could even be considered as doing more than average. I’ve never been addicted to any substance, and as my parents had said before, they never said a cross word about my SIL to anyone so she couldn’t claim they did. This was it for me.
I excused myself and went up to the office to print off copies of the messages she’d sent to friends previously, and the post in the group that my partner screenshot at my request. I printed off enough copies for everyone at the table (10 were there in total) and wrapped them all up in groups. I then stuck some labels onto them as being from ‘Father Christmas’. I slipped downstairs and put them under the tree, claiming they were some more gifts I’d found. Just to say that everyone there was an adult, so there wouldn’t be a child thinking that Father Christmas was just an arse.
The day continued, and my SIL finally arrived and apologized for the delay. Everyone said it was not a problem, and the food got cooked, served, and eaten. We’ve always opened presents after lunch, so everyone got set up with each other’s presents, as well as the ‘mystery’ Father Christmas present that everyone seemed to get. Someone eventually opened a Father Christmas present and started to read, before asking my SIL what she meant by us being a horrid family. My parents, brother, and she all quickly opened theirs and read them through.
My SIL went as white as a sheet and started asking who did this, but my brother told her that she brought this on herself and had gone too far. My parents said nothing to anyone, and eventually, she excused herself. My brother said that since the day they started dating, she decided our family hated her and had spent years trying to prove it, ranging from the order their names were written in cards to the number of potatoes she was served at a meal. She obviously had no real evidence since there was none. My brother had no clue about the messages or Facebook groups but expected there to be many more. He decided to leave, apologized, and got into contact with us about half an hour later saying they were both at home and stable (since the ‘kill myself’ part had worried my mother especially).
I kept quiet about my role in this until everyone else had left. My mother suspected it was me, but said she was happy this would actually be out in the open. I apologized profusely for ruining the day before we left.
My brother has been in contact with us to further apologize for everything my SIL has said/done and said he wasn’t making any rash decisions yet but they needed to sit and talk about everything. I hope this has made her think about her choices, and that she can work on the reason why she had lied to herself and others for so many years.”