Turns out it’s not Santa that these kids had to worry about being good for. They pushed their parents too far and now Dad’s selling off their presents on eBay. The actual auction can be seen here.
The man said he and his wife announced the possible punishment in a family meeting earlier this week.
“We told them to think about what kind of brothers they were being, how they were treating their parents and what kind of men they were going to grow up to become,” he said. “We told them they were destroying each other and the calm and peace in the household. It had to stop.”
The boys pledged to reform, he said, but were back at their rowdy ways early the next morning.
“When two of them were together, they’d get along great,” he man said. “But as soon as the third comes in, it’s immediately two against one.”
The next evening, a second family meeting was held to announce that the top level of presents - about $700 in video games - would be sold on the computer auction site. The oldest boy, the man said, responded with a challenge to carry out the threat.
“My first thought was, ‘Oh, (expletive),’ He’s telling me to prove it. What are you going to do then?” the man said. “You can’t just let the tail wag the dog. If this has a positive long-term effect, and it makes them better people, that’s all that counts. I’m certainly not a vindictive, mean, evil beastie of a person.”
The boys’ mother noted the children increasingly have been disrespectful to her, their father and each other.
“We’re on a very limited income,” she said, “and we scrimped and we saved. You have no idea how hard it was to get these games for the boys, but I did and I was treated like crap. ... It really crushes me, but we felt like we had to take a stand.
“I kind of prayed that they (the toys) didn’t sell on eBay.”
Jinkies! That’s definitely a lesson learned the hard way.
I can recall more than one occasion growing up where one or more of us kids got way out of line and my folks threatened to take back all our Christmas presents unless we straightened up, but I don’t think any of us were ever stupid enough to actually challenge them to do it. Calling my mother’s bluffs never resulted in anything positive for any of us kids and I’m pretty sure that if one of us had managed to get Christmas canceled then the other two would’ve definitely been out for blood. There are just some things you don’t want to risk your parents being serious about going through with. Not if you have any brains in your head at least.
Posted on 12/25/2004 at 09:33 AM 
Posted on 12/25/2004 at 10:27 AM 
It looks like the eBay auction has been taken down already, for one reason or another…