Family forgot to add their elderly dog on their Christmas card. Their loved ones had questions

With the holiday season upon us, most families have a tradition of sending out Christmas cards with family pictures that often feature their pets. So, when a Massachusetts family forgot to add one of their pets to their Christmas card this year, their family and friends had a lot of questions. Tina Haupert was excited to design and send out the 2022 Christmas card by the first week of December. The Haupert's holiday card had a picture of Tina, her husband Mal, their son Quinn and the latest addition to their family, their pet lizard, Scales. "This year, my son got a lizard so that was kind of the new family member," Haupert told TODAY.

But when friends and family received the Christmas card from the Hauperts, they noticed that an important family member was missing — their 13-year-old pug, Murphy. "He’s 13, so he has been on the Christmas card every year," Haupert said, adding that their friends and family have been seeing his face on the card for years. "I don’t even know how it happened, I was just focused on the lizard because he was the new family."

People immediately started messaging Haupert. A person texted, "No, Murphy?" Another asked, "I can't believe SCALES made the holiday card and NOT Murphy." Another friend even wanted to know who created the cards this year.

Meanwhile, some were concerned that the 13-year-old canine might have passed away. A person asked, "Pug, okay?" Another asked, "What happened to Murphy?" The family soon realized that they had to correct their mistake. They sent out another Christmas card and this time, they made sure no one would miss Murphy. The pug's zoomed-in face stared back at recipients as the card read: "I'M STILL HERE! Happy Holidays! Love, Murphy!" There was also a special message on the back of the card from Murphy which said that his humans forgot about him on the actual card but "I assure you I am alive and well." 

Haupert said, "The text messages after people got Murphy's card were so funny. People were rolling." 

She said that they love Murphy and their "family and friends know how much" they love him. Murphy is apparently often an honorary guest at many events and many friends have even babysat him on different occasions. "Honestly it was just us being our goofy selves," Haupert said. "We just love the dog."

Haupert created a Tiktok video about the fiasco and it went viral with more than 860,000 views and 184,000 likes. People on the platform just loved what the Hauperts did to fix the issue. A user wrote, "Thank you for making it right! This baby deserves his own card every year." Another said, "They didn’t wanna see the family they wanted to see the star." Another user said, "Personally I’m only putting Murphy on the fridge! The first card is going in a drawer."

The same video received more than 15000 views and about 1000 likes after it was posted on Instagram. It was captioned, "My best friend was really annoyed with me…" Many wanted justice for Murphy and some suggested extra treats would make up for the mistake.