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TIFU by ruining the magic of Christmas

Every year around the holidays I am still saddened at the fact that I ruined the magic of Christmas by being a nosy child.

Christmas was my favorite time of the year as I came from a lower income household so I didn’t get presents unless on my birthday and Christmas. During my childhood my mom went all out fully decorating our house in a Christmas theme, ranging from Christmas hand towels all the way down to Christmas rugs. Christmas was her favorite holiday as a kid and she wanted that same magic for my brother and I.

Going back to when I was 10 years old my brother and I both believed in Santa but also knew our parents would give us one gift with mom and dad written on the box, but the rest came from Santa.

One day my brother and I decided we couldn’t wait till Christmas Day and decided to look for the one present that was coming from our parents, so we looked everywhere, under beds, in closets, but ultimately decided to go into the crawl space to look further.

After checking nearly every container in our crawl space, we got to the last couple of boxes under a blanket, and under that blanket contained every Christmas gift for the both of us. We were both a bit puzzled, as we thought Santa didn’t bring gifts until Christmas morning. Of course being nosey children we went through each item. The TIFU moment occurred when I got my hands on a Yak Bak (the let you record messages on them) naturally I hit the play button and it was a voice recording of my mother saying “Ho ho ho merry Christmas” in her best efforts to sound like Santa. We both instantly realized that Santa and my mom were the same person and it crushed us. The magic of Christmas was gone just like that, and I felt tremendous guilt of spoiling it for myself.

While playing with the Yak Bak I accidentally recorded over my mom’s Santa voice and once that happened it was gone forever. Fast forward to Christmas morning I’ll never forget when I unwrapped the Yak Bak and my mom asked me to hit play to see if Santa left a message, and when I did that, I was me making fart noises. The look on my mom’s face still pains me to this date 25 years later, the sheer look of disappointment and sadness on her face on what was supposed to be a special message ruined by nosey children who just couldn’t wait to know what gifts they got on Christmas.

My mother passed away a few years ago from cancer and since then I have a child of my own. As a parent I know find myself in similar shoes as my mother wanting Christmas to be just as magical for my daughter specifically with Santa in honor of my mom.

I miss my mom dearly and what I wouldn’t give to still have that Yak Bak with her voice on it.

TL;DR - I spoiled Christmas by being nosey only to find out my mom was Santa.

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