anyone feeling a wee bit guilty about celebrating Thanksgiving and Xmas??

by Star Moore 67 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Mulan

  I celebrated Thanksgiving even when I was an active JW. Cooked a big turkey meal every year and missed meeting that Thursday night, in fact because the kids were home from school we skipped all congregational activities the whole weekend! Oh and on a few occasions we even celebrated thanksgiving with other JW's.

  So did we. We usually had to go to the meeting though. Dave was the TM school overseer for 15 years. Kind of hard to get out of that. When I was a kid, we always went to my grandparents and had a big turkey dinner and didn't go to the meeting. All were JW's too. My mother tells me that no one had a good reason why not to do it, so we did.

  As for Christmas, I did feel odd celebrating it the first couple of years. I didn't feel guilty because I knew there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. But I worried we would get caught, and took great pains to be sure the tree wasn't visible from the street,driving by the house. That seems so stupid now. We still are not disfellowshipped or disassociated, and don't care. This year the tree is going in the front window!!
• 

  jstalin

  Bloody history? What are you talking about? It's not about killing Indians, it's about the first settlers giving thanks for living through the year with no famine and having a good harvest.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving
• 

  Juniper

  This is my first year and a half out, and by golly.....I'm gonna have a 'holly jolly'! :)

  Happy Thanksgiving, all!!!!!
• 

  dobbie

  I have decided not to let anyone make me feel guilty i am going to have a good time and have already done most of my xmas shopping!I even bought a santa claus sign to stick out the front garden asking him to stop here!(thought that would wind the jw neighbours up hee hee!) My husband is a bit awkward with it all but then hes decided not to leave, trying to fade soi told him that if his family say anything he can blame it all on me! Funny thing is i always said that if i left i'd never be able to celebrate things again - wrong!!!I am so looking forward to my childrens 'first' xmas i will be more excited than they are (ok i'm sad i can't help it!)
• 

  daystar

  First, no, not guilty at all. Then again, I've been celebrating them for 15 years and even as a JW, we nominally celebrated Thanksgiving anyway.

  Second...

  Thanksgiving has a bloody history..

  Your "analysis" is quite faulty. Thanksgiving has no bloody history. Thanksgiving is pretty much exactly what it's made out to be.

  But I was thinking that it's not what someone made them in the past but what they are right now.. to us, at this moment.

  That's the rationalization people use to appease their consciouses. The whole reason for celebrating holidays is for the tradition involved. Its meaning, its symbolism, reaching back into the mists of the past are precisely what makes them so important. The pagan origins of some of these holidays are very important. And they should be.

  Rather than be afraid of their origins, you should embrace them for what they are. Your rationalization here is a key indicator of your lack of a free mind.

  "this meal is a meal in dedication to the slaughter of the Indians."

  You apparently have no idea what Thanksgiving is. Having some significant deal of a Cherokee legacy, I'm actually rather offended by this.
• 

  wifey

  Nope!!! Looking forward to it. We're cooking Thanksgiving dinner and having some of the non-j-dub family over. Put up our new Christmas tree yesterday and getting excited about that. G-kids are all excited too.

  The littlest one saw the tree and said "WOW!!! COOL!!! He's 2.

  So cute, this is what Christmas is all about!

  Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!

  Wifey
• 

  Backed away

  Not at all, but then again I was the little boy as a JW who would get up early Christmas mornings just to look outside and see my friends playing with their presents. I also very young loved the music, the smells and the colors of Christmas. I guess that should of told me something back then huh? with two beautiful Grandsons, Christmas now has a even greater feeling for me!
• 

  Bonnie_Clyde

  I celebrated Thanksgiving even when I was an active JW. Cooked a big turkey meal every year and missed meeting that Thursday night, in fact because the kids were home from school we skipped all congregational activities the whole weekend! Oh and on a few occasions we even celebrated thanksgiving with other JW's.

  I was a witness almost 50 years and we always had a big turkey meal on Thanksgiving. We always reasoned that you have to eat, this is a day off where family can get together, and turkey is "on sale" this time of year. We have a freezer and would usually get a few more to cook during the next couple of months. The JW's didn't seem to mind as long as we didn't call it "Thanksgiving." Of course, we would always say thanks in prayer before the meal. However, the last time my elder father came to our house for Thanksgiving, we asked him to say prayer and he chastised us a bit during the prayer for celebrating Thanksgiving. However, he sat down and enjoyed the meal anyway.

  Does anybody know when the last time that the WT commented on Thanksgiving celebrations? I can't remember anything in recent years. I know that the Witnesses tend to become lax when a no-no isn't mentioned for a few years.
• 

  Bonnie_Clyde

  I celebrated Thanksgiving even when I was an active JW. Cooked a big turkey meal every year and missed meeting that Thursday night, in fact because the kids were home from school we skipped all congregational activities the whole weekend! Oh and on a few occasions we even celebrated thanksgiving with other JW's.

  I was a witness almost 50 years and we always had a big turkey meal on Thanksgiving. We always reasoned that you have to eat, this is a day off where family can get together, and turkey is "on sale" this time of year. We have a freezer and would usually get a few more to cook during the next couple of months. The JW's didn't seem to mind as long as we didn't call it "Thanksgiving." Of course, we would always say thanks in prayer before the meal. However, the last time my elder father came to our house for Thanksgiving, we asked him to say prayer and he chastised us a bit during the prayer for celebrating Thanksgiving. However, he sat down and enjoyed the meal anyway.

  Does anybody know when the last time that the WT commented on Thanksgiving celebrations? I can't remember anything in recent years. I know that the Witnesses tend to become lax when a no-no isn't mentioned for a few years.
• 

  mrsjones5

  I've had a christmas tree since the first year of my marriage (it will be 14 years on December 5). Do I feel guilty about it since I was raised to believe that it was the wrong thing to do since birth, nope. I feel more guilty if I didn't have a tree since I have raised my children to expect one. I love it and have always loved the smell of a christmas tree, yep even when I was a child trying to be a good littlr jdub.

  Josie ~ I gotta find my Charlie Brown Christmas CD