I celebrated Christmas again in my late 20s after a 15-year gap. It was a blast!! It's been my favorite holiday ever since, with Halloween a close second.
Each Christmas reminds me of the Christmases my family used to have when I was a child, before the JWs arrived to blight our lives. I bake enough cookies for my husband, my son, and our (nonJW) relatives, friends, and neighbors. We always have a real tree, and when we decorate it, each ornament recalls something our son made for us when he was small, vacations we have taken, people we know, and family who have died -- it's a deeply emotional time. We open our gifts on Christmas Eve, always accompanied with a glass of wine and Belgian chocolates. On Christmas day, I bake a monster smoked ham, purchased from a local butcher. All our family gathers together (minus the JWs, of course) and enjoy the ham plus all the trimmings, and they open the gifts we have saved for them. After everyone has left, my husband and I sit with ham sandwiches and watch the snow (if any). It's like "A Christmas Story," but without all the mishaps.