I had to cancel Christmas for my eleven-year-old foster daughter.

Last Monday, her mom (who was doing really well after eight months, and we were trying to organize an overnight stay on Christmas Eve with), had a mental breakdown that resulted in the police getting called and her one daughter that had moved back in had to move out. DSS then canceled all unsupervised visits. We were all devastated by this setback, and we tried everything we could to arrange some kind of visit Christmas Day, but they wouldn’t budge (once we found out the full context of the incident, we agreed that was the right call).

Move to Friday, the 22nd. I get a call from my wife that the girl had stolen a gift bag with some shampoo and soaps that was to be donated to one of those adopt a family programs at her school. When confronted, she denied stealing it, claiming she was told it was for her (it wasn’t, nor was the kid that she claims told her that aware of this). We were livid. My wife made her bring the gifts to the girl and apologize. After, she doubled down on her innocence and wanted to know if she was still going to be receiving all of her Christmas presents (she’s extremely materialistic). It was at this point, I told my wife that she was not going to receive anything from us, which she reluctantly agreed.

Before we could even inform her of that punishment, she attempted to run away. The only reason I heard her is that she closed the storm door too loudly. When I chased after her (in 22 degree F weather, and she only had a fleece jacket on) and yelled at her to get back in the house because she was grounded, she refused. Eventually, I had to call the police because of the danger (she has a history of running away). She initially refused to polices urging to come back to the house, until they told her that if she refused, she would have to go to a juvenile detention facility for Christmas.

I then had the task of telling her Saturday that, because of her actions the day before, she was not receiving any presents from us for Christmas. Her first question was: “will I still get the phone that my mom bought me?”

We’ve since been monitoring all exits out of our house since Friday night. My wife has slept on the couch in the living room each night.