Busy mom ordered 80 holiday cards worth a 'mortgage' of her family—then realized grave error that forced her to improvise
Holiday preparations can be quite overwhelming at times. In the midst of all the chaos, a person might also end up making some mistakes. So when a busy mom made such a mistake, she decided to pick her battles wisely. The woman, Jessi Way, accidentally ordered 80 holiday cards with a stock last name instead of hers. The mom was frustrated as the cards cost almost as much as one mortgage payment. A moment later, she came up with a simple improvisation, per her Instagram page, @thegoodwrench. The video received over 6.6 million views.
"POV: Your holiday cards arrive..." the text overlay of the video read, as the frustrated mom collected them in a pile. The cards had a photo of her family and themed decoration. But then the woman zoomed in as she wrote her own last name, "Way," over the stock last name, "Sinclaire," that she had forgotten to remove. Jessi used a black Sharpie to make the correction. "You forgot to change the stock last name on your Christmas cards...so now you are the Sinclaires." The caption explained that all of their Christmas cards had turned out like that. "Accidentally ordered all 80 of our Christmas portraits with the stock last name Sinclaire."
Jessi expressed that she was not going to reorder the cards because they were quite expensive. "And no, I am absolutely not reordering them because these holiday cards already cost roughly one mortgage payment." The mom went on, "So if you get a Christmas card from the Sinclaires, just know it's actually from the Way family… just a busy mom over here doing her freaking best this holiday season. God bless Sharpie." Jessi told Newsweek that she didn't think of reordering the cards even once. "Reordering never crossed my mind. This season is already full of juggling kids, schedules and holiday to-do lists and I was not willing to pick that battle!"
She added, "When I first saw the cards, my immediate thought was, 'This is fixable' and I grabbed a Sharpie." Jessi felt reassured by the fact that if nothing else, her family would get a good laugh out of it. "I knew our friends and family who would receive the card would get a good chuckle out of it." People shared their own holiday card experiences in the comments section of the video. @hayleybugs wrote, "Hey, at least you got them…last year I designed them, picked out photos, proofread all the things, then three weeks went by, it's four days before Christmas and they still haven't come in the mail…I never checked out of the cart."
@neiye_b commented, "You have to lean in and get a stocking or ornament that says Sinclair family that you'll use every year." @reebecki remarked, "This year, my family is the Harrisons! We have been cackling and laughing about it since I mailed out the cards and didn't notice! Someone else had to tell me!" @jessiepreza shared, "I accidentally did this for a client about 10 years ago. But it was the 'So and So's' as a place holder. Good thing they had the best sense of humor and we still laugh about it today." In another video, the woman shared how she let her kids take the lead with Christmas decorations this year and how much fun they had with it.
You can follow Jessi Way (@thegoodwrench) on Instagram for more lifestyle content.