We all have that one relative, don’t we? The one who makes gift-giving a full-contact sport. The one who receives a thoughtful, expensive gift and looks at it like you just handed them a box of dirt. This story is about the Queen of those relatives, a sister-in-law named “Amy,” and the glorious, savage clapback she had coming.
Our narrator (30F) and her husband are hosting the whole family for Christmas. This includes her brother, Chris, and his wife, Amy (33F). Amy, it seems, is professionally ungrateful. She “complains about every gift she is given.” She makes faces. She makes “snide remarks.”
Let’s just look at last year. The narrator and her husband gifted Amy and Chris a joint present: an expensive coffee maker. This wasn’t a random gift. It was the same one Chris had loved when he visited their house. And Amy’s reaction? Not “thank you.” Her only remark was, “oh well this isn’t really for me is it.” And then she proceeded to make a “great show” of being annoyed that she didn’t get a separate gift. The entitlement is already staggering.
So, this year, Amy decided to “fix” the problem of everyone giving her such “terrible” gifts. She sent a group email to the entire family. It was a Christmas list for her and the kids. But oh, this was not a “here are some ideas!” list. This was a “demand” list. A manifesto.
And the contents? “Expensive perfumes, links to expensive clothing items, and designer handbags.” But the real kicker was the line that said she would only accept gifts from this list. I am screaming. This isn’t a “Christmas list”; it’s an invoice.
The narrator was “livid.” Her parents were “offended” but, in classic parent fashion, “didn’t want to say anything.” But our hero? Our hero was not going to hold back. She hit “reply all” (I’m assuming) and went in.
She told Amy, point-blank, that she wouldn’t be purchasing anything on that list. And then… the k!ll shot. The line that deserves a standing ovation. She added that if Amy really wanted that Louis Vuitton wallet, “I was happy to put her in touch with my saleswoman.”
I am deceased. I am buried. That is not a clapback; that is a public execution. She finished by saying if Amy didn’t like her actual gift, she was “welcome to just leave it at my house.”
As you can imagine, the family chat imploded. The brother, Chris (the one who loved the coffee pot, mind you), “blew up” at the narrator. His defense? Amy was “just trying to make everything easier for everyone.” Easier? By demanding her in-laws, who are hosting her, drop hundreds of dollars on designer bags? How is that “easier”?
But our hero wasn’t done. She told her brother the God’s-honest truth: “Amy was just trying to find a sneaky way to get a few things she normally can’t afford for free.” She called it what it is: “extremely childish” and “not in the spirit of Christmas.”
The parents are in “don’t-rock-the-boat” mode, thinking she should have just been quiet. But her sister, Lucia, is firmly on Team Narrator, saying she wasn’t about to spend hundreds on Amy’s list either.
So, is she the ahole for not going along with this high-fashion hostage situation? Let’s be perfectly clear: N-T-A. You are not the ahole. You are a hero. You are the only one in that family with a spine.
Amy is not “making things easier.” She is a “grossly entitled” adult who is using Christmas as a way to extort free, luxury goods from her family. You don’t get to send a “demand” list and then cry foul when someone calls you out on your tacky, greedy behavior.
NTA/ she reminds me of any only child or the youngest!