“‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring” — except a 3-year-old boy on the hunt for a Spiderman toy that was on his Christmas wish list.”Yall. My 3-year-old came down at 3 am and unwrapped EVERYONE’S presents,” Scott Reintgen, a father and the New York Times Bestselling author of “A Door in the Dark” and “A Whisper in the Walls,” said in a post on X that included a photo of a mess of ripped-open gifts and piles of wrapping paper under a festive Christmas tree.In comments on X, formerly known as Twitter, Reintgen explained that his son fell asleep around 9 p.m. and that the family’s presents were under the tree by around 10:30 p.m.”Just didn’t expect him to go down in the middle of the night,” Reintgen tweeted.Reintgen said his wife, Katie, had gone to bed and that he’s normally a light sleeper. But, he had been up until around 2 a.m. taking care of his youngest child. About an hour after dad fell asleep, the 3-year-old made his way to the tree to unwrap the gifts, according to reports from NBC News, the Washington Post and “TODAY,” which say that the Reintgens have two other children, a 6-year-old and a 1-year-old. “He literally came back upstairs asking for scissors. That’s how we knew something went terribly wrong,” Reintgen tweeted, then going on to explain that “We only knew what was happening because he came back upstairs shouting ‘I need scissors for my web shooter!'”Thanks to the 3 a.m. search for scissors, the parents were onto the situation and were able to move quickly enough to re-wrap their other kids’ gifts before they woke up. Reintgen tweeted that the situation called for a “very rushed ‘rewrap,'” of the oldest child’s gifts “so we could keep the entire house from spiraling.”The photo went viral after Reintgen posted it to the social media platform, which was formerly known as Twitter. Millions of people saw the photo, and as of midnight Wednesday, over 135,000 people had liked it. Thousands of people retweeted the post, and thousands more offered comments. With the situation evoking a viral response, Reintgen took to X with a video.”Just adding his explanation for why he opened everything! … 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,” he wrote. In the 18-second video, Reintgen said his “son’s version of the events” was that “he came downstairs and wanted to open all of the presents so no one was confused and they all knew what they had gotten. That’s his story, so.”While he and his wife tried to find humor in the situation, they made sure the youngster walked away from the situation having learned a lesson.”We talked through how he feels when he opens a present, and how we want other people to have that same choice and feeling. He agreed he would want other people to experience that and was only trying to help. … mostly we laughed and had fun with it,” Reintgen said in the comments on the post.It seems the 3-year-old’s storytelling father isn’t going to let the youngster live it down. At least not in the foreseeable future. “It was shocking for about five minutes and a fantastic story forever,” Reintgen said in his comments on X, going on to joke that “It’s already written into a wedding speech.”
“‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring” — except a 3-year-old boy on the hunt for a Spiderman toy that was on his Christmas wish list.
“Yall. My 3-year-old came down at 3 am and unwrapped EVERYONE’S presents,” Scott Reintgen, a father and the New York Times Bestselling author of “A Door in the Dark” and “A Whisper in the Walls,” said in a post on X that included a photo of a mess of ripped-open gifts and piles of wrapping paper under a festive Christmas tree.
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In comments on X, formerly known as Twitter, Reintgen explained that his son fell asleep around 9 p.m. and that the family’s presents were under the tree by around 10:30 p.m.
“Just didn’t expect him to go down in the middle of the night,” Reintgen tweeted.
Reintgen said his wife, Katie, had gone to bed and that he’s normally a light sleeper. But, he had been up until around 2 a.m. taking care of his youngest child.
About an hour after dad fell asleep, the 3-year-old made his way to the tree to unwrap the gifts, according to reports from NBC News, the Washington Post and “TODAY,” which say that the Reintgens have two other children, a 6-year-old and a 1-year-old.
“He literally came back upstairs asking for scissors. That’s how we knew something went terribly wrong,” Reintgen tweeted, then going on to explain that “We only knew what was happening because he came back upstairs shouting ‘I need scissors for my web shooter!'”
Thanks to the 3 a.m. search for scissors, the parents were onto the situation and were able to move quickly enough to re-wrap their other kids’ gifts before they woke up.
Reintgen tweeted that the situation called for a “very rushed ‘rewrap,'” of the oldest child’s gifts “so we could keep the entire house from spiraling.”
The photo went viral after Reintgen posted it to the social media platform, which was formerly known as Twitter. Millions of people saw the photo, and as of midnight Wednesday, over 135,000 people had liked it. Thousands of people retweeted the post, and thousands more offered comments.
With the situation evoking a viral response, Reintgen took to X with a video.
“Just adding his explanation for why he opened everything! … 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,” he wrote.
In the 18-second video, Reintgen said his “son’s version of the events” was that “he came downstairs and wanted to open all of the presents so no one was confused and they all knew what they had gotten. That’s his story, so.”
While he and his wife tried to find humor in the situation, they made sure the youngster walked away from the situation having learned a lesson.
“We talked through how he feels when he opens a present, and how we want other people to have that same choice and feeling. He agreed he would want other people to experience that and was only trying to help. … mostly we laughed and had fun with it,” Reintgen said in the comments on the post.
It seems the 3-year-old’s storytelling father isn’t going to let the youngster live it down. At least not in the foreseeable future.
“It was shocking for about five minutes and a fantastic story forever,” Reintgen said in his comments on X, going on to joke that “It’s already written into a wedding speech.”
