She Called Her Sister-In-Law Cheap For Giving Her Grandmother A $50 Gift Card At A Secret Santa That Really Only Had $45 On It Because Her Sister-In-Law Also Used The Gift Card To Pay For Gift Wrap
Every holiday season, this 24-year-old woman, who is married to her husband, 25, plans a Secret Santa for her husband’s family. This has been a tradition for the last seven years.
They use an app for the exchange, and she organizes the name drawing, checks that everyone has received the links, and sends reminders for everyone to draw the names of who they’ll be buying a gift for. She also troubleshoots any technological issues that people encounter within the app.
Her husband’s family is in charge of making the rules for the exchange. His family decided that everyone had to provide their gift wish lists by Thanksgiving.
The budget for gifts was $50 because they wanted to avoid some people buying presents for $5 and others purchasing items for $100. Her husband’s entire family has agreed to stick to this budget.
She and her husband don’t give any of his family members any other gifts, so this gift exchange is really important to them. They also had given her grandmother $50 so that she would be able to buy someone a Secret Santa gift.
Her 70-year-old grandmother lives with her and her husband, and her grandmother participates in holiday gatherings with her in-laws.
Most of her husband’s family members stick to gifting people experiences or things they know the person would enjoy. Gift cards are often a popular choice.
“Last year, my sister-in-law, 35, drew my grandmother’s name for the Secret Santa. When we were going around handing out our gifts, my sister-in-law handed my grandmother a small box,” she said.
“My grandmother opened it, and inside was a gift card to one of her favorite stores. My sister-in-law made a joke that the card had $45 on it because the box she put it in cost her $5.”
insta_photos – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
Since her sister-in-law is pretty sarcastic, everyone had a good laugh at this, her sister-in-law included, so everyone seemed to be under the impression that she was only kidding.
Her sister-in-law had written “$50” on the gift card, and the box was a simple, white cardboard box, so this seemed to solidify that she was just being facetious.
After this comment, the gift opening continued, and everyone proceeded to play games and enjoy their time together.
Later, she and her grandmother went shopping, and her grandmother picked out an item to use up the $50 gift card.
While checking out at the register, the cashier let her know that she still owed $5 after she scanned the gift card.
This confused her grandmother at first, and she thought the cashier was mistaken. Her grandmother had made sure to purchase something $50 or under.
She was in line with her grandmother at the time, and eventually, it dawned on the two of them that her sister-in-law’s comment about using the gift card to pay for the $5 box hadn’t been a joke.
The two of them were irritated, but she paid the $5 her grandmother owed. At this time, her grandmother had just completed her first round of chemo, so she had a ton of medical bills and needed to budget carefully. Luckily, her grandmother is now cancer-free.
The only reason her grandmother purchased this item in particular was because she had the gift card.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to afford it. After getting back from shopping, she informed her husband what happened.
Since they both chip in to support her grandmother financially, they are also extremely careful with their spending.
Even though the $5 she spent wouldn’t affect their finances dramatically by any means, she wanted to give her husband an update because it was the end of the month. They normally try their best not to go over their planned monthly budget.
He agreed with how she handled the situation in the store, adding that he also was bothered by what his sister did, explaining that he would have chipped in the $5 for her grandmother if he had been the one in line with her.
They never told anyone else about the ordeal, but they both thought it was odd because her husband’s sister makes a decent living and has a lot of extra money to spend.
Plus, her sister-in-law usually isn’t a cheapskate. Most of the time, she buys extravagant gifts and is incredibly generous.
“In planning this year’s Secret Santa, I included at the end of the details: ‘Please, do not include wrapping materials into the cost of the gift. I have a big stash of them from the Christmas clearances last year and am happy to share!'” she explained.
When she wrote this in her message to send to her in-laws, she assumed that no one would recall her sister-in-law’s comment.
Evidently, tons of people did remember, so they assumed that she was making a direct jab at her sister-in-law.
Then, some of her in-laws sent her husband’s sister messages joking around about the whole thing.
Her sister-in-law was not amused, though.
“She sent me an angry message, saying I was a jerk for calling her cheap to the whole family,” she shared.
Because she, her husband, and her grandmother never told anyone about what happened when her grandmother used the gift card, her in-laws had only been making jokes in regard to her sister-in-law’s original comment during the gift exchange.
In the past, she and her husband’s sister have had a wonderful relationship with each other, so this situation was surprising for her.
She wasn’t sure how to handle it because she didn’t want to cause conflict. So, she assumed that her message to all of her in-laws wouldn’t make her sister-in-law mad.
Also, she didn’t have a problem with her husband’s sister choosing a gift card as a present for her grandmother. In her opinion, this was a really kind gift idea, especially since her grandmother loves having the chance to buy things for herself.
Because her grandmother has had to be more careful with money as of late, she hasn’t been able to buy fun things as often.
Before the gift exchange, her sister-in-law checked with her that the store she would be purchasing the gift card from was her grandmother’s favorite.
Every year that they’ve done this gift exchange, no one has ever pulled the same move that her sister-in-law did.
What advice would you give her?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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