My 5-Year-Old Unwrapped A Cracked Plastic Toy At The Family Gift Exchange. But Her Cousins…
My five-year-old unwrapped a cracked plastic toy at the family gift exchange, but her cousins were tearing into expensive boxes. My parents giggled. I grabbed the gifts from my trunk, looked straight at the table, and said,
“You won’t be getting a thing from me again.”
The room fell silent—until my sister yelled.
Christmas morning at my parents’ house had always been more show than sentiment. Giant bows, unnecessary chandeliers rented for the day, and gourmet food no one actually liked. But this year, I hadn’t expected my five-year-old daughter to be used as part of their little joke.
She sat there cross-legged in front of the tree in her best red dress and sparkly shoes, smiling like she always did when she thought she was part of something special. Her cousins—there were six of them—were tearing through metallic paper and ribbon like wild animals, shrieking every time another iPad or pair of designer sneakers came out of a box.
The twins even got a VR headset each. One of them unwrapped a gold bracelet—real gold, by the way. And then my daughter found her name on a tiny bag that looked like it had been stuffed under the tree as an afterthought.
There was no tag. The wrapping paper wasn’t even taped. She pulled it open and held up a plastic toy horse. It was purple with cheap glitter, already cracked at the belly, and one leg was missing. The head was scratched. It looked like something that had been fished out of a dollar store clearance bin—or worse, someone’s attic.
She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me and smiled. You know that kind of smile where a kid is still trying to believe in magic even when they’ve been handed proof it’s fake. That kind.
My mom snorted. My dad actually laughed and whispered something in her ear. I heard the word regifted. My sister giggled.
I stood up. No one else noticed—or maybe they did and just didn’t care. They were too busy recording their kids opening Beats headphones and remote-control drones.
There was a stack of my gifts under the tree. Two beautifully wrapped ones I’d spent weeks putting together, each one personalized. I hadn’t even gotten to hand them out yet.
I walked out to the driveway, opened the trunk of my SUV, and pulled out the rest of the gifts I hadn’t brought inside yet. I carried all of them back into the living room and set them down hard on the table.
Nobody even turned their heads.
I looked straight at my parents and said flatly,
“You won’t be getting a thing from me again.”
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