FOR many parents around the world, the festive period involves dashing to the high street to find prezzies for their little ones.
But not for mum Aaryanna who recently revealed that Santa didn’t visit their home this year – and there’s a good reason behind it.
Taking to TikTok, the US-based mum explained that her kids, 15 and 17, missed out on gifts this Christmas because she felt the two teenagers didn’t deserve them.
In a now-viral video, which has since sparked a fierce debate on the platform, the mum-of-two wished the children a ”Merry Christmas” – before proudly showing the decorated tree which had no presents under.
”They get nothing this year,” Aaryanna said, as she went on to share what the teenagers allegedly had got up to over the last 12 months.
According to Aaryanna, who wanted to ”cancel Christmas”, her children had ”acted like fools” and also ”got in trouble at school”.
To avoid any potential problems and issues, they’d also ”lied” to her face on several occasions, calling their mum names and disrespecting her.
”So I decided not to buy them anything this year.”
Since being posted on the popular social media site, the clip has racked up close to a staggering 2million views in just one day – and leaving thousands of TikTok users divided.
Dozens of hundreds flooded to comments, where some were horrified and others – supported the mum’s decision to skip forking out for prezzies.
One mum wrote: ”I took Christmas away from our 17 yr old this year because he spent the entire year being a brat.
”I spent the money on presents for kids at the Children’s Home and made him come with me. It’s hard but these kids need humbling.”
A second chimed in with their brilliant way of teaching their son a lesson after a poor year at school.
”Our oldest acted a fool in school this year. He got his TV under the tree before we knew better, but yeah, we decided he can totally get the TV…BUT, HE GONNA EARN THE REMOTE.”
Another wrote: ”I would have filled the tree with presents I bought myself, opened them up right in front of them. From me, to me.”
IF you have a gift card for a retailer or other business that goes bust, you could find it hard to get your money back.
Senior Consumer Reporter Olivia Marshall explains your rights.
When a firm collapses, administrators are often brought in and they view customers with gift cards as creditors.
First of all, you should go to the business and see if you can still use your voucher as some administrators will honour the purchase.
But otherwise you’ll have to make a claim in writing to them with proof of your vouchers.
If the gift card was purchased through a third party, you could also approach that business for a refund.
You won’t be entitled to a refund but they could still repay you.
Sadly there’s no obligation for your gift voucher to be honoured and if a business goes bust they can become worthless.
If you bought a gift voucher that’s worth £100 or more you could try claiming the money back under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.
This law means shoppers can get their money back from their card provider if they didn’t get what they paid for.
For spends under £100, or if the voucher was purchased with a debit card, you might be able to make a claim through the “chargeback” scheme.
But unlike Section 75, this isn’t a legal requirement so there’s no guarantee you’ll get your money back.
Experts suggest avoiding buying gift vouchers due to the risk of losing money if things go wrong.
However, there were also plenty of those who reckoned Aaryanna had gone too far, forgoing the presents for her teenagers.
One person said: ”you may not get your kids what they want. but I would at least get them something.”
Another thought: ”I’m probably overthinking this, but isn’t this kind of negative reinforcement?
”Like they are only going to behavior kindly when they believe they are getting something in return.”
Someone else shared their view, writing: ”kids actually don’t really have the concept of future consequences, only immediate, kids live in the moment so banning xmas will only confuse them and help them resent you.”
