AITA for taking my sisters Christmas presents away, one week before Christmas?

A Redditor and her wife, both working overtime during the holidays, took on the task of cleaning and decorating their mother’s house for Christmas while caring for her post-cancer recovery. After cleaning up her sisters’ (20F and 16F) mess, the sisters retaliated by throwing the Redditor’s clothes in the trash.

Frustrated by their ungrateful behavior, she now considers taking away the thoughtful gifts she bought them. Was she justified, or is she “ruining” Christmas? Read the full story below.

‘ AITA for taking my sisters Christmas presents away, one week before Christmas?’

I 23f and my wife 24f currently stay at my mothers who is a recovering cancer patient and my sisters weren’t able to take care of her. My wife and I decide to take time out of our busy schedule to clean up and decorate the house for the holidays since my mother isn’t physically able to.

This comes at a very busy week for the both of us cause we both work overtime during the holidays so we don’t have time to care for the house as much unless it’s during our days off. We finished our goals of cleaning, decorating, and wrapping presents for everyone which took two days btw.

this year I’ve chosen to give my sisters good Christmas presents since I’ve received a bonus earlier in the year, but now after this mess I’m rethinking my choices and wether I even want to spend the holidays at home with a bunch of ungrateful bitches.

For context my sisters are so dirty that it takes them months to clean after themselves, they aren’t lil kids they are 20 and 16 years old. While cleaning up the laundry room I’ve taken the liberty of getting all of their dirty clothes putting them inside of their hamper and putting that back in their room since it got in everyone’s way.

I guess this action pissed them off that in retaliation they chose to take my clothes out of the dryer and throw them into the trash, after cleaning the house with my wife for the past two days i was not expecting their disrespectful behavior towards us since it’s been us going out of our way to make sure the house is clean and ready for the holiday season, we even got them the presents that they requested months in advance.

Some apple bottom jeans with a pair of uggs boots and four gifts cards for Sephora and DoorDash (2 each) along with some B&BW perfumes and body lotions. After this s**t I don’t even know if I should let them keep their gifts or if I should find someone else who will appreciate them a lot more than they will.

I wasn’t expecting praise but this is over the top and petty to be doing idc if I’m “ruining” Christmas for them at the end of the day they’re grown and understand consequences and know right from wrong

OP’s wife : I wanna add some things first my MIL is doing better she actually started working again not that long ago she still has bad days tho that’s why we included that in the post .

OP came back from work and MIL called her but she didn’t want to talk to her so I answered she sees both sides of the argument, when this all happened MIL was yelling at 16f bcs apparently MIL has been telling 16f to clean up her mess for a while now.

OP has left it up to me on what we do for Christmas but that doesn’t really help since my family is worse but that’s a whole other story so I’ll update you guys on what happens OP still wants to take the gifts away but trust me 16f won’t even notice MIL has been buying things for her all month half the gifts under the tree are for 16f before the argument MIL was wrapping new Jordan’s for 16f

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

dryadduinath −  NTA. Putting their clothes in hampers in no way justifies throwing your clothes away. People, kids or adults, who refuse to clean up after themselves and act up in such a massive way to such small pushback do not get a special gift in return. That’s just a hard no.

If mom will be okay on her own now, I would go ahead and holiday elsewhere, maybe use the money you get back when you return the gifts to really treat yourselves. It sounds like you could use a break. 

Tough_Crazy_8362 −  apple bottom jeans. What year is this?. (NTA)

StrongPluckyLadybug −  NTA. But I will say Y T A for putting that song in my head so early in the morning. (Shorty go low, low, low…). Merry Christmas!!!

perpetuallyxhausted −  Some apple bottom jeans with a pair of uggs boots. So they wanted some apple bottom jeans and boots with the fur?

CartoonistPrize8186 −  NTA. Take the gifts back, and on Christmas Day, make sure it’s a meal for 3.

CrimeStray −  No, you bought the gifts and they are old enough to not throw temper tantrums over receiving help. You also bought them so really it’s up to you what you do with the gifts. What you could do is let them know if the behavior continues you won’t hesitate to take them away if you’re feeling bad about not giving them another shot since they could be stressed with your moms situation?

CobblerHuge3536 −  Ah this is when coal go in to the stockings 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Delicious-Ad-9156 −  NTA return the gifts and tell them you replaced the clothes they thrown to trash with that money 

roshen-korivka −  nta, for sure. you and your wife got out of your way to help, and this kind of behaviour from your sisters side is disrespectful af. (especially since you’re both working overtime)

Physical_Ad5135 −  NTA. Don’t find someone else to give the gifts to instead, just return the items. You spent hundreds on this – get your money back! If you want to, get them a candle or something for about $10. I think they are mad you didn’t wash their clothes for them, and less about moving the clothes.

Do you think the Redditor was justified in wanting to take away the gifts after her sisters’ disrespectful actions, or should she rise above their behavior and preserve the holiday spirit? How would you handle such a situation? Share your perspective below!