Man Leaves Wife in Kitchen Cooking While He Opens Presents
What’s the best part of Christmas? Is it the singing, the food, the good cheer, or, as the OP here suggests, the giving of gifts and watching the joy on kids’ faces when they open gifts they love. Would it still be a good Christmas without that?
In this post, user u/Funtee tells of his experience hosting Christmas last year and how he and his wife had to juggle all the tasks involved on the day. Getting the food right was his wife’s responsibility, while the OP thought that the ‘difficult job’ of socialising with the guests was his priority.
u/Funtee AITA for Opening the Kids' Xmas Presents While My Wife was Cooking Lunch? This last Christmas just gone, my (38M) wife (35F) and I hosted Christmas day at our house. We have 2 daughters (7 & 11) and our guests were my brother and his wife and kids (5F & 7M) as well as my Mom (65F) and Dad (75M) , my aunt (Dad's sister 72F) , and my cousin and his wife (42M and 39F). All up there were 9 adults and 4 kids. It was a fairly big deal for us as we hadn't hosted that many people before and my wife had been stressing for days over getting all the food right, especially with all the timing for the multiple roasts and other assorted parts of the menu. My brother and his wife arrived first with their kids about 10:30am and everyone else had arrived by 12. It was champagne and blueberry muffins on arrival and everyone was in a great mood. I was juggling being a host, while my wife was preparing the meal for lunch.
So what’s the best time for opening presents? What if others have a different idea or are working to a different schedule?
The OP decides to open presents while his wife was still preparing dinner. He lets her wife know and gives a five minute warning.
My wife and I had originally thought that we would save opening of presents until after lunch, but my Mom and Dad were keen to see their grandkids play with their gifts straight away and my cousin said they had to leave at 3pm. So I approached my wife in the kitchen and told her we were going to have to open presents early. She asked me to "give her five" as she was busy doing some cooking preparation. After about five minutes I called everyone together and said we were going to open presents and the kids were very excited. I called to my wife telling her we were starting but didn't get a response. Before I knew it, people were handing gifts back and forth, kids were yelling, there was mess everywhere.
But where was the OP’s wife? Preparing dinner for everyone else, it seems. Rather than wait for her, the OP let everyone open their gifts – including the OP and his wife’s own kids. The wife did not appear
I heard my mother ask where my wife was so I sent my oldest daughter to go and get her (and to thank her mom for the mini tablet she got for xmas). When my wife finally emerged from the kitchen, pretty much the only gifts left to give were for her and the kids had all disappeared to play with all their new toys. She was, though, the centre of attention and had a big smile and thanked everyone as the polite and beautiful woman she is.
It seems that the OP’s wife, while polite on the outside as ever, was not backward in letting her husband know how she felt about the way things turned out.
He explains …
Then, she leaned into me and whispered in my ear "You're a f...ng AH. Talk later." I was shocked but neither of us showed anything outward over lunch but I was seething inside. What had I done? It wasn't until everyone had gone and the kids were in bed that she lashed out at me. She told me I had completely f....ed up the best bit of Christmas Day - watching the kids (in particular) open their presents. She said it was particularly upsetting to her because she had been the one who had chosen, bought and wrapped all the gifts for the kids - and that I had contributed nothing towards that, yet got to watch and take credit. She said that I should have waited until she was in the lounge with everyone before a single present was open. I tried to tell her that it had got out of control and that I had called her, and that she had said five minutes and it had been longer than that. I thought she would forget about it but she's been quiet and distant for a long time now. AITA here?
Readers were divided:
u/megamaniac999 YTA Your wife is out in the kitchen doing all the preparation and you treat her like that? Surely you could have co-ordinated that better and not called everyone together until she was there? I'd be massively upset too . You're on the naughty list with your wife and you'll need to work very hard throughout the year to reverse that.
u/sixsessionsbaby NTA I'm not sure what you're supposed to do. I know exactly the pressure you're on when it's a big group and you're trying to satisfy everyone. I really think you should have done the kids presents early and then maybe other gifts as people arrive, but you'll learn from this. And tell your wife to take a chill pill and grow up.
So, who do you think the AH here is?
