3-year-old wakes up his entire family at 3 am on a holiday morning for a hilarious reason

The holiday season is truly the season of surprises. However, not all of them are pleasant. Katie and Scott Reintgen—who go on X (previously Twitter) by @Scott_Thought—woke up to a not-so-pleasant surprise on Christmas morning. Their three-year-old son woke early and unwrapped all the presents under the Christmas tree. Reintgen shared a photo of the wrapping paper strewn everywhere under the tree.

The caption of the post read, "Y'all. My 3-year-old came down at 3 am and unwrapped everyone's Christmas presents." Now, that is truly a stuff of nightmares for parents, especially for ones with multiple kids like Katie and Scott Reintgen, who have a 6-year-old, 3-year-old, and 1-year-old. The North Carolina couple shared with The Washington Post that their 6-year-old is an adamant rule follower and believes in Santa wholeheartedly. 

At the moment, the incident was anything but funny. After all, the parents were left with the massive task of rewrapping the gifts. But looking back, it couldn't have been more hilarious. Scott Reintgen shared a follow-up video on the X thread with his son's explanation. The son explained that he opened all the presents because he didn't want his family to get confused about what they'd received.

Many people reacted to the tweet by saying they would have been quite angry if they had been in a similar situation. But the Reintgen's are raising a truly free-spirited child. The NYT bestselling author of "A Door in the Dark" captioned the explanation video by saying, "Also have to add: We're not mad. He's a good kid, and it's a story we'll tell for the rest of our lives." Now, did the Grinch steal Christmas or did the North Carolina couple manage to save it? Katie immediately got to rewrapping the gifts. This was no easy feat, as the extra packaging was also torn, leaving no spare wrapping paper available. Yet she managed to somehow rewrap all the presents by 6 am, in time for their other kids to wake up and see their presents perfectly wrapped under the tree.

She cleverly reassembled the gifts, positioning the torn parts towards the floor to conceal the damage. Fortunately, their 6-year-old was convinced that everything was okay, apart from Santa getting a couple of names wrong. Scott declared his wife the hero for averting what could have been their 6-year-old's "villain origin story." Nonetheless, when he learned about what his brother had done, he was shocked.

The parents shared that their 3-year-old wouldn't do it from the next year, hopefully. They saved Christmas but could not get any sleep. Scott added, "We are sipping coffee and plotting to tell this story at his wedding." Several people on X commented on the thread, saying that they or their kid had done a similar thing many Christmases ago. It has over 6 million views at the moment. Scott concluded the thread by saying that he and his wife spent most of the holiday looking after their sick child and were glad the post brought good cheer to so many people.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on December 29, 2023. It has since been updated.