Earlier this month, blogger Lisa Henderson announced that she and her husband John had decided not to have Christmas. The family, who lives in Utah, will still put up decorations, but presents from Santa are a no-go this year. "John and I feel like we are fighting a very hard uphill battle with our kids when it comes to their rights," Henderson wrote on her blog. "It is one of the biggest struggles as a parent these days in middle class America. Our kids have been acting so ungrateful lately. ... John said, "We shouldn't just celebrate Christmas. And, so that's what we did." Instead, the Hendersons are putting the money they would have spent on gifts toward service projects in order to teach their three sons the "pleasure of giving." The children will still receive gifts from grandparents and other family members, but this year, she said, their letters to Santa will be asking him to find someone who needs presents more than they do. In an interview with ABC News, 11-year-old Caleb Henderson admitted that he and his brothers had been behaving badly. "We would hit each other. We were fighting and crying," he admitted, and Lisa said that _  But so far, Henderson told Fox News last week, the family is having a sudden turning this into a different kind of gift. They have already held a clothing drive and sent boxes of clothes and candy to a village in the Philippines that was hit hard last year by Typhoon Haiyan. "The children were excited and kept wanting to give more and more," she reported on her blog. Many readers responded positively to Henderson's post. Some sharing their own stories of limiting Christmas in order to teach their children to be charitable  or grateful. "As parents you're giving your kids something so much more special than a bunch of gifts on Christmas," one wrote. But Henderson received negative follow-ups as well on her blog. Responding to critics, she updated her blog with a statement that reads, in part: I just wanted to explain a couple of things. First, my kids are in no way hurt for things.... They have reacted by making gifts for each other and packing them into each other's stockings stealthily . They are learning exactly what we wanted them to learn, because they are not moving around feeling sorry for themselves. They are thinking of others. The second thing I wanted to explain is why I wrote this post. Some people seem to think I wrote this for attention. Ummm, the attention you get from posts like this is not good and actually extremely difficult to deal with.... The reason I wrote this post is I want to empower parents to feel like it's okay to take a stand. ... I wanted to share what we are doing, so any parents that feel they are struggling with the same issues in their home can see what others are doing and get ideas for their family. My intention is to help support other parents and to raise amazing kids. The Hendersons decided not to spend Christmas because  _  .
they wanted to make their kids understand the pleasure of giving their kids could receive presents from their other family members the struggling couple tried to save some money to buy kids gifts the whole family would go to the disaster areas in the Philippines