Mom Cancels Christmas for 'Ungrateful' and 'Entitled' Kids

If a trip to Meijer or any of dozens of Michigan stores brimming with toys has turned Christmas joy into Halloween scariness — if you’re hearing, “I want” more often than, “I want to give” — and if you’re at the end of a sparkly garland rope with weeks to go before the big day, take a breath.

Overthebigmoon.com blogger Lisa Hendeson offers some food for thought:

Cancel Christmas.

The southern Utah woman said her children were so ungrateful and felt so entitled that she called the whole thing off, WPXI-TV reports.

Well, not the whole thing. The important traditions continue.

“We have not cancelled putting up decorations, celebrating the birth of our Savior, or any of our other heartwarming traditions. But, we have cancelled presents, Santa, and stockings,” she wrote on her blog. “Their letters to Santa this year will be asking Santa to find someone who needs their presents more.”

Tell Us:

• Would you cancel Christmas to teach your children the spirit of giving? What other strategies do you advise to teach them gratefulness?

Henderson, said she and her husband, John, felt as though they were fighting an uphill battle with their kids.

“Our kids have been acting so ungrateful lately,” she wrote. “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.”

The family will instead donate the money they would have spent on Christmas presents for their children to service groups that provide gifts to kids living on the economic margins of society and selflessly help in other ways.

“We are trying to teach them the pleasure of giving rather than continuing to feed their childhood desire for more,” she wrote.

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Photo licensed by Creative Commons via Palladius