Toddler wakes up at 3:00AM on Christmas Day and opens presents under tree without family

An eager toddler has astounded his family after waking up in the early hours of Christmas morning to unwrap his presents.

On Monday (December 25) morning, parents Katie and Scott Reintgen were awakened by their three-year-old son, who had a strange request: he needed scissors.

When the North Carolina couple woke up to investigate the bizarre request, they soon discovered that their enthusiastic son had ripped open every single Christmas present that they wrapped the night before.

Speaking about the hilarious ordeal on X (formerly known as Twitter), Scott shared a picture of the Christmas tree surrounded by already-opened presents, with the caption: "Yall. My three-year-old came down at 3am and unwrapped EVERYONE's presents."

Check out the post below:

The father, who is the bestselling sci-fi and fantasy writer of A Door in the Dark, shared a follow-up post explaining his son’s "version of the events," stating in the video that the 3-year-old "wanted to open all the presents so no one was confused" about what they had received, jokingly adding: "That’s his story."

"Just adding his explanation for why he opened everything!" Scott wrote in his caption. "Also have to add: we’re not mad. He’s a good kid, and it’s a story we’ll tell for the rest of our lives."

Nevertheless, many people found joy in the toddler's antics as the story went viral on the social media platform, reaching a staggering 6.9 million views and 136K likes.

One user remarked: "This story will live in infamy. I almost pity the kid when this gets told at every major event of their life…"

Another person chimed in: "The baby was just… making sure the gifts were safe. Yeah! What if Santa made a mistake or something? XD the gifts had to be triple checked!"

A third shared a similar experience, writing: "My daughter did this at 3 too. I woke up to paper being torn and she had opened everything. I caught her in the act and took a picture, which I will show her when she gets older."

The father of three - who shares a six-year-old, three-year-old, and one-year-old with his wife Katie - opened up about the incident to the Washington Post, noting: "There was the cold realization that all the effort you put in the night before had suddenly been undone, but mostly, it was just such an unbelievable thing to see."

"There was not one thing that he left unscathed — it was all of it," he continued. "Sure, we could have gotten angry at our kid unwrapping all the presents - or we could have fun with it."

Reintgen described the moment as "the best possible disaster," adding: "We will 100 percent be sharing this at his wedding. It’s one of those unbelievable stories."

When the parents realized what their son had done, they jumped into action to try to save Christmas for the rest of their children.

Katie quickly repackaged as many of the unwrapped gifts as possible, using a combination of new and ripped-up paper and a lot of tape. Thirty minutes later, all of the presents had been hastily rewrapped as well as possible.

"Some people were like, 'We’d be so furious'" but this is the funniest thing that has happened this year," Reintgen remarked.

It was a Christmas miracle.

Featured image credit: Oscar Wong / Getty