Woman shares heartbreaking reason her family did 'scavenger hunt' on Christmas Day
A woman took to TikTok to share her shock after finding out that her family's favourite Christmas tradition of a scavenger hunt actually had a pretty heartbreaking origin
December 25 can be filled with different traditions – varying from family to family. From the order you do things, to the films you watch and people you spend it with, most people have a certain way they prefer to do things on Christmas Day.
One woman, named Emily Anne, took to TikTok to share her favourite Christmas tradition of a scavenger hunt. But it wasn't until she grew up that she realised there was a heartbreaking reason why it began.
"Adulthood is looking back at your family's Christmas traditions and realising how many of them started because your parents didn't have any money," she said at the beginning of the video.
Emily went on to explain how her favourite Christmas tradition growing up had been the scavenger hunt that her parents organised for her and her siblings every year on Christmas Day.
"My sisters and I would wake up on Christmas morning and come downstairs to a note from Santa with a list of clues leading to where all of our presents were," she explained. "And I'm pretty sure we had more fun working together to solve all the clues than actually opening the presents."
She went on to share how there would always be at least one prank present, such as a potato, for them to open, which made everything even more fun.
However, as they all got older, their parents decided to share the heartbreaking reason why they'd started that tradition in the first place.
In the candid video, she shared: "It was because their first Christmas with children, they had $20 (£15.99) to spend on everybody for all of their Christmas presents – and they had no idea how they were going to make it last for everybody.
"So they decided to start a scavenger hunt to make the process of opening all of the very few presents they got a lot more memorable. And then to make more things to open they went around and wrapped up like potatoes and random things from around the house."
She explained how her mum had been certain that Christmas would have been a disaster. But instead, Emily said it became the start of one of "the best" Christmas traditions.
The video quickly racked up millions of views – and several viewers took to the comments to share their own favourite traditions that had similar starts.
"One tradition was all the kids slept in one room together with one adult in it so we couldn’t sneak out and open gifts. Real reason was that no one in the family had a big enough house," one viewer said.
A second person said: "We went to bed with no tree. Woke up to a fully decorated one and gifts. We were too poor and they gave out free trees on Xmas Eve. My mom stayed up and decorated it all. It’s my favourite magic."
"Our Santa got water and a ham sandwich instead of milk and cookies so we would "stand out." Parents needed to save the milk," a third user shared.