I Tricked My Stepmom Into Buying Christmas Decorations She Didn’t Want, and Now She Won’t Talk to Me

A woman’s relationship with her stepmom has seen better days. After a long time enduring her stepmom’s hurtful antics, she decided to take matters into her own hands and give her a taste of her own medicine. Now, their relationship is broken, and she turned to social media to look for advice, and/or validation for her actions.

She wrote:

“My husband and I have this board hanging on our wall. It’s a list of all the things we want and need, how much it will cost, how much we saved for it, and when we should be able to have it. It has things like new fridge, dishwasher, nice knife set, wish list items, etc. I even include pictures, model numbers, or other specific descriptions for a lot of these items. I’m very proud of it.

My father and his wife come to visit on a semiregular basis. My stepmom always makes sure to look at my board, comment on it, and express her sadness that we are unable to afford the stuff. Within a week or so, she will buy one of the exact things on my board for herself. Sometimes it’s a smaller item like the coffee maker, other times it’s a larger item, like a motorized toy car for her children.

Her buying these things isn’t really what bugs me; what bugs me is her rubbing it in my face that she was able to ’get it first’ or how I was ’copying’ her when I do finally get the item. It’s super annoying and childish.”

"Anyway, I was walking through a local store’s Christmas section right after Thanksgiving. I was looking for board ideas and happened upon a giant, ugly (in my opinion), super pricey outdoor Christmas decorations set. It gave me an idea. It was definitely not my stepmom’s style. But hey, why not try?

When I got home, I put the set on the high priority section of my board. Going as far as to erase the money I had pooled for other things and move it to this Christmas monstrosity so we could ’buy’ it sooner. I was hoping this trap would be tempting enough for my stepmom, especially if I made this set seem super important.

A couple days after that, my father and stepmom visit. My stepmom looks at my board and asks about the set. I gush over it, describing it as the way to make my Christmas dreams come true. I really lay it on thick.

On Monday, we go to visit my dad at my stepmom’s request. Sure as everything, she bought and put up the entire set. It’s ugly and over the top. I hate it. It’s hilarious. Immediately she dives into to describing why she just ’fell in love with it’ and how she ’had to have it,’ making a huge deal on every little piece and how it was so worth the money. Finally, she concludes her gloat fest with telling me that I really do have great taste and sorry she beat me to it.

I tell her, “Oh, I don’t actually like the set. I just put it on the board and said I liked it to mess with [husband]. He hates the over the top stuff like this. Glad you love it, though.” If her smile fell any harder, it would have fallen right off her face. The rest of the visit she was quite, didn’t say much. She looked like a kid who got coal for Christmas. My dad kept asking her what was wrong and got a lot of ’I’m fines’ and then finally she got a headache and went to bed early.

Soon after, she also put up the decorations on a Facebook sell group this morning for pickup after Christmas. She now refuses to talk to me, none of her usual texts or calls."

People in the comments couldn’t help but share their opinion on this family matter, and the consensus seemed to be that the author of the post didn’t do anything wrong.

• That is awesome, she passive-aggressived herself into buying an ugly thing because she thought you wanted it, and now you can use that story whenever she tries to use the “copying me” or “I had one first” narrative as she has shown her true colors. © mgush5 / Reddit

• When I read this at first, I thought she would go out and buy you one of the items on the board and then make money comments, which would be like, nice, but then rude. The fact she bought them for HERSELF? That isn’t right. You now should have that as your decoy board and put the real board in your bedroom or something. How funny. © nothannahmontana / Reddit

• I love it! Amazing work. It is so petty that she belittles your board. I think having a visual reminder of what your goals are is a fantastic idea. © aussiescientist / Reddit

• Seriously, this was brilliant and proves that what you thought she was doing was exactly what she was doing. It’s so crystal clear that all of this was to be able to see you sad and defeated. What an awful person. Tiny details like her inviting you over specifically to see your “beloved” decorations on her lawn when you didn’t have them yourself. © HerTheHeron / Reddit

It also seems this issue is much more common than what many may think:

• My mother would do this. She actually stole my whole wedding. I was engaged for about two years, she met and married a guy within the year, her fifth wedding, and she copied every single thing I wanted. It really hurt.
  She even bought the identical Weddington set I had but, of course, bigger. For our 25th wedding anniversary, I got a totally new wedding ring and love it! Haven’t talked to my mom in about 11 years. © neener691 / Reddit

• My mom is like this. Anything special that I get, she then has to get also, including my engagement/wedding ring. I got a very plain design, which I love. She got a much smaller version, but likes to brag that we have the same ring.
  She has a Keeping Up With Joneses’ complex too. I decided to mess with her and get her to buy a few things. (Really, all I had to do was mention that I liked something that someone else had.) I then convinced her to buy an expensive electronic item that she had no need for. After that, I felt bad about wasting my dad’s money and stopped. © Unknown user / Reddit

• One of my husband’s workmates is like this. We decided to build our house in a new estate, and were talking about it. He also decided to build there, despite several times mentioning it was too far out of the way.
  We also debated purchasing a new car, and he and his wife suddenly bought one before we did. So we bought a different one instead. And he looked so pained when he saw it. © KatLikeTendencies / Reddit

Having issues with family members is completely normal. The problem is that sometimes it can actually ruin special occasions, such as wedding. Some wedding incidents ended up online and the stories are crazy.