Meet The Couple That Cancelled Christmas

Remember when you were naughty as a kid, and your parents told you that if you didn’t shape up, Santa Claus wouldn’t be coming? A family in Utah actually followed through on that threat: Christmas is cancelled for a couple in Utah and their kids, and their story is going viral.

John and Lisa Henderson of Hurricane, Utah, were tired of their sons being disrespectful, and as Lisa writes in her blog, “entitled.”

“John and I feel like we are fighting a very hard uphill battle with our kids when it comes to entitlement. Our kids have been acting so ungrateful lately. They expect so much even when their behavior is extremely disrespectful. We gave them good warning, either it was time for their behavior to change or there would be consequences. We patiently worked with them for several months and guess what, very little changed. One day after a particularly bad display of entitlement John said, ‘we should just cancel Christmas.’ And, so that’s what we did.”

To be fair, the couple that cancelled Christmas isn’t completely ignoring the holiday all together. They’ll still be decorating the house, still be putting up a Christmas tree, and still be celebrating the birth of Jesus. The couple’s three boys — 11-year-old Caleb, 8-year-old Davis, and 5-year-old Beckham — will still get Christmas gifts from grandparents and other family, but none from Mom and Dad, and none from Santa.

Instead, the couple is using the money they would have spent on gifts for the kids to help others and for “service projects,” according to CNN. So far, they’ve held a clothing drive for families devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in The Philippines, and purchased nativity sets to give to needy families.

And come Christmas morning, rather than greedily tearing into boxes filled with the latest toys and gadgets that will soon lie forgotten at the bottom of the toy box, the Henderson boys will enjoy a more old-school, but no less magical, Christmas morning.

“Christmas morning won’t be less special without Santa coming. Instead we can enjoy our cinnamon rolls, play games as a family, and truly enjoy the few presents they did get. There is a good possibility that Santa will be writing them a letter of how proud of them he is and perhaps put a few pieces of hard candy and an orange in their stockings.”

The couple has gotten some heat for their decision to cancel Christmas, if the comments on Lisa’s blog are any indication. Lisa writes in an update that some comments have “ripped [her] to shreds as a mother.”

Other comments have been more supportive. Commenter Anne compared the couple’s decision to the plight of her own parents.

“My parents were immigrants who escaped communist Europe after the war and some Christmases were lean but we had wonderful traditions, meals with other expats and projects like making our own ornaments and baking. We never felt deprived. To this day, baking gingerbread men from my grandmother’s recipe brings back fond memories. We spent hours decorating those cookies as kids. Christmas depresses me these days with the shameless commercialism.”

What do you think about the family that cancelled Christmas? Is this something that you would consider doing in your family?

[Image courtesy of: ABC]