Most people have heard about the Angel Tree program that’s run by The Salvation Army. It’s common within churches or other big communities–there is even one here at Wylie High School. What exactly does Angel tree do, though? The program allows children from low income families to create wish lists that anyone can pick up and shop for. The idea of this is that someone with the means will pick up a kid’s tag (essentially their wish list) and shop for the kid, donating their gifts to the program that then sends the gifts directly to the family.
Of course, Angel Tree is a program designed to help children get the Christmas of their dreams. However, recently there have been some videos gaining popularity for all the wrong reasons. TikTok users will film themselves picking up a tag (wish list) and attempting to participate in this special program. There is a good heart behind these videos… most of the time. One user, however, has sparked a lot of conflict online.
Itscookiedoughh (let’s call her Cookie) picked up a tag for a little girl with a list of many different things, which is typical for an Angel Tree tag. Cookie does not go about getting anything in the right way, though. Her video is filled with complaints about money (she spends the bare minimum), complaints about things being difficult to find or too specific, concerns about skin color, and a strange focus on branded v.s. off brand items, and overall it’s just not a pleasant experience to watch.
Cookie really gains popularity through all of this because of her quote within her video: “We’re boy parents.” She ends up picking 3 things for the girl that aren’t what the girl asked for, then goes back and switches those 3 items for 1 since that was, in theory, closer to what the girl asked for. This became such a problem because Cookie continued to focus on the money minimum, instead of generously gifting to the girl.
TikTok users did not like this video, but it wasn’t only because of the problems with the girl. Directly after she decided to “call it a day” for the girl, she moves on to the boy, getting him exactly what he wanted while talking about how easy boys are to shop for since the boy left a smaller, simpler list.
The comments on this video were highly focused on the idea that she shouldn’t have picked up the girls tag if she couldn’t afford to shop for her. This feedback makes sense, but Cookie made her situation so much worse with her response to it. She responds by posting a video saying “If these kids are truly in as much need as you guys are saying they are, they would be grateful for anything,” and “At the end of the day, they’re gonna be grateful for whatever they have, and if they’re not, that’s on them and their upbringing.”
On top of this, she makes a claim saying “I know what it’s like to grow up poor.” She continues to make her response so much worse, making all kinds of claims about how many poor kids don’t get their tag picked up, how her preferred charity is animals, and then deflects the whole situation on her husband, saying he picked up the tags and it wasn’t her choice.
There’s been even more that has come out with Cookie still trying to fight her case, but people are already over trying to correct her. She shuts down any comment, no matter how respectful the commenter is.
Despite there being a few people who seem to ruin this special program, there are so many people doing so many generous things to help support a child from Angel Tree. Anyone who is able should go do something nice this Christmas and do it with a smile and bright attitude.