A toddler in North Carolina opened all his familys presents before they woke up
I think every family has that one adorable but mischievous kid. Not a ‘bad’ kid or anything like that, but just a headstrong child who keeps their parents on their toes. In my family, this child is my younger son. He’s a decisive old soul who has always acted much older than his age. For example, back in mid-2020, when he was just two-and-a-half-years-old, we awoke one morning at 7am to him riding a tricycle out on the back deck. He figured out how to unlock the sliding glass door and wanted to ride, so he did.
A three-year-old in North Carolina must have that same mischievous gene. He woke his parents up at 3:00 a.m. on Christmas morning, asking for scissors to help finish opening some of his Christmas presents. Yup, this spirited child woke up in the middle of the night to check out what Santa brought him, and once he saw the presents underneath the tree, he just went for broke and opened up everything. Amazing.
A North Carolina couple woke up on Christmas morning to what they described as a “terrifying” scene: their 3-year-old loudly requesting a pair of scissors. Scott and Katie’s Reintgen’s toddler secured an early preview to Christmas by waking up at 3 a.m. to unwrap his entire family’s presents.
“The 3-year-old had found his Spider-Man web shooters, and so he wanted scissors to cut them out,” Scott Reintgen, who works as a science fiction and fantasy author, said in a phone interview Tuesday morning.
The couple has three children, ages 6, 3 and 1, and Katie Reintgen said her 3-year-old son had unwrapped “literally everything, from the tiniest eraser to the biggest box.” The gifts had taken hours to wrap the night before, the couple said. The 3-year-old, whom Scott and Katie lovingly refer to as “the midnight perpetrator,” explained to them that he unwrapped the presents because he didn’t want his family to be confused.
“He wanted us to be able to see our presents so we knew what they were,” Scott Reintgen said. “I think he legitimately just felt that he was doing a service to everyone. He will not do it again next year, we hope.”
Katie Reintgen added, “Showing no remorse.”
The morning then became a mission for the Reintgens to save Christmas for their 6-year-old son.
“The 6-year-old is very much the rule-follower so the idea that someone would just go down and open all the presents would just be unthinkable to him,” said Scott Reintgen. “But our middle child is very much the adventurous, ridiculous, no-rules, have-fun kind of kid.”
While Scott put the children back to bed, Katie painstakingly taped the ripped-up wrapping paper back together, having run out of fresh wrapping paper. She said she was careful to put the presents up high on the mantle so their 3-year-old couldn’t reach them. Scott shared photos of the moment on X, and received an outpouring of support from parents telling him their child tried the exact same stunt.
“Luckily my wife repackaged enough of the presents to stop the villain origin story for the 6 year old,” he wrote in a post on X. “We, on the other hand, are sipping coffee and plotting to tell this story at his wedding.”
I. Love. This. Story. That three-year-old had no Fs to give when it came to opening those Christmas presents. He was not scared of being caught by Santa, the Grinch, or his parents. December 24 is practically the only night of the year that our kids stay quietly in their rooms, lol. I bet some of you know what I’m talking about. So yeah, this kid cracks me up, even though I feel for his poor parents! What else can you do at 3:00 a.m. but put your child back to bed, take pictures for social media/future stories, and try to salvage Christmas for the rest of your children? This story is going to lovingly follow that kid for the rest of his life.
Katie and Scott Reintgen woke up in the middle of the night to find all the presents under the tree unwrapped. It wasn't Santa Claus.
It was their 3-year-old son. https://t.co/SmOyRVaedK
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 26, 2023
Yall. My three year old came down at 3am and unwrapped EVERYONE’S presents. pic.twitter.com/8dlfqdwHO7
— Scott Reintgen (@Scott_Thought) December 25, 2023
Frontpage photo credit: Eli Pluma on Pexels. Other photos via Twitter and Instagram/Scott Reintgen
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