This thirty-five-year-old woman and her husband, Miles, who is thirty-seven, have three kids together. Their two sons– Lucas and Andy– are eight and nine-years-old, respectively. They also have a daughter named Claire, who is five-years-old.
Now, Lucas is technically from her husband’s past relationship, and Andy is from her prior marriage. However, they have each accepted each other’s children as their own.
Anyway, Andy was actually born on December 24– Christmas Eve. So, the entire winter holiday is very special to her son.
In fact, her husband Miles even started a tradition and told Andy that Santa Claus considered him a “kid of Christmas.” That way, Andy felt magical and special– and she always tried to keep that going.
For instance, last Christmas, she even left some “Santa Claus” footsteps in their home and ate the carrot and “grass” that Andy had left out for Rudolf.
Apparently, though, her husband was actually not a fan of her efforts to give Andy additional feelings of Christmas magic. Instead, Miles actually viewed it as favoritism and even asked that she stop doing it.
Now, she wholeheartedly disagreed with her husband’s belief that she was favoring Andy– particularly because Miles was the one who created an entire “kid of Christmas” tradition centered around just Andy anyway.
But she did not fight her husband on it, and they came up with another holiday tradition instead.
More specifically, Miles suggested they get an Elf On The Shelf. And even though she had no idea how that worked, he explained it to her and said he would take over “Elf duty.”
Viktoria – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual child
So, they went out and bought a cute Elf. Their kids later named it “Bob,” and her husband explained the basic rules of having an Elf in the house.
Essentially, their children had to behave, and they could never touch or hold Bob. And if the kids did not listen, the Elf would become naughty.
Her kids then became totally invested in the new tradition, and she claims that, at first, it was pretty adorable.
“It was cute to see them spy on Bob, try to see it ‘fly’ each night. Andy was the most excited of all. I found him one night talking with it, asking it if Santa still remembered him,” she recalled.
Soon after, though, she claims that her husband Miles took his commitment to the “behave or Bob would be naughty” bit much too seriously.
It all began when their oldest son, Lucas, did not complete his chores. At that point, Lucas became the Elf’s– or rather, her husband’s– “first victim” and woke up with Sharpie all over his face the following morning.
Next came her daughter Claire, who touched Bob and got her favorite onesie destroyed. Her husband reportedly made that incident appear as though Bob the Elf had grabbed some scissors and cut up the clothing while her daughter was sleeping.
So, it soon became apparent that even though Miles was having fun, the kids were not. She even brought this up to her husband and suggested that he take a break from the pranks. Still, though, he wanted to get one more notch on his belt– Andy.
“He agreed but wanted to catch Andy since he had not broken any rules,” she explained.
She ended up telling Miles that Bob was just supposed to tell Santa about any misbehavior– not actually retaliate. Then, after getting into an argument about this, she claimed that her husband finally agreed to take a step back from Elf duty.
Well, fast forward to Christmas Eve, and some of Andy’s friends went over to her house to celebrate his birthday. And while the kids played in the backyard, she reportedly noticed her husband looking “sus.”
And at that point, she thought it would be a good idea to look for Bob. The Elf was supposed to be in the kitchen, but when she went to locate it, she realized it was no longer there. So, she went out and asked Miles where the toy had gone, and he claimed to have “no idea.”
Now, after hearing that from her husband, she admitted to immediately feeling a bit paranoid. At the time, though, her son Andy had already asked if they could cut the birthday cake. So, she put on her “best face,” grabbed the cake, and brought it over to her son.
As soon as Andy opened up the cake box, though, he immediately burst into tears. She then peeked inside and realized that “Bob” had completely ruined the birthday cake!
Apparently, the Elf was covered in the sweets– appearing as though the toy had been eating the cake. In fact, half of the birthday cake was not even there anymore.
She obviously felt bad for Andy, who was totally distraught. But Miles and some of the other parents actually found the entire thing hilarious and even started laughing at her son.
So, her blood started to boil, and out of sheer anger, she decided to grab Bob the Elf and throw it into the trash. Then, she took her husband, Miles, inside, and they had a massive argument.
During their fight, though, Miles actually had the nerve to call her a complete jerk for what she did to Bob.
She also got accused of ruining the entire tradition since they would not keep the “magic” going with the kids since she touched the Elf, too.
Honestly, though, Andy had not misbehaved or done anything wrong that could have warranted her husband to make the Elf “be naughty.” So, she ended up actually kicking Miles out of the house on Christmas Eve.
Her husband ended up spending Christmas day with her in-laws; meanwhile, she stayed alone with the kids– who all slept together in Andy’s room since they did not want to leave their brother alone.
The following morning, after the children opened gifts, she also planted a special note from “Bob” in hopes of making Andy feel better.
“Saying that Bob is sorry if he scared Andy and his siblings, he did not do his job correctly, so now he would be flying to the North Pole with Santa,” she revealed.
“And when Andy asked if Santa still remembered the ‘kid of Christmas,’ [Bob said] that he did, and Santa was really happy to see him,”
Since then, she and the kids have also been staying at her parent’s house– and will probably celebrate New Year’s there, too.
So now, with her kids still recovering from Bob the Elf’s reign of terror– and her and her husband’s relationship in shambles at the moment– she has been left reflecting on the entire situation. Moreover, she is questioning whether she was in the right for throwing away the Elf or if she really acted like a jerk and “ruined Christmas.”
Why do you think Miles wanted to catch the kids being naughty so badly? Does it seem like her husband was just trying to be a bully– especially because Andy never actually did anything wrong? If your partner ruined your child’s birthday like that, how would you have reacted? Did she have a right to throw away Bob the Elf?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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