by AK - Jeff 15 Replies latest jw friends
We always did the 'family thing' on T-day, excusing our dinner in that manner. Many witnesses I knew did the same.
Now, I proudly do it as Thanksgiving Dinner with all the trimmings and not one ounce of guilt.
This year I do it with a 7 foot fully lit Xmas tree in the LR. No guilt there either.
Any still struggling with leftover JW Holiday Guilt Syndrome?
Jeff
I'm sure I ate a lot of turke;y on Thanksgiving day during my 32 years as a witness.With a lot of elders and ministerial servants.
Any still struggling with leftover JW Holiday Guilt Syndrome? Jeff
The only thing about it that I struggle with is that except for 2 nieces who became Christians, my entire family refuse to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Birthdays or any other day except their annual Reject Jesus celebration the Watchtower Society makes much ado 2 months in advance of.
BTW, we (my church family) are so thankful that God has blessed us with abundant life now and in the future.
I grew up celebrating Thanksgiving.......and I thought .......no harm......we can do it again...
then I saw a show the other day......of Indians offended by the celebration. Many see it as a day of mourning when they lost their heritage and land.
I really felt sorry for them and keep thinking of the movie Dances with Wolves.
I just did not want to gloat and be thankful at the expense of others........so .......I did get a spiral ham and spiral turkey ......and a coconut cake today to eat the next four days.
purps
Dear Jeff:
Gobble, Gobble this year and all remaining years.
Still a little on the fence regarding Ho, Ho, Ho though.
Your friend,
Richard
(The Wanderer)
Nope not at all.
(you have a christmas tree up already? cool)
Hi Jeff,
No guilt for me but my hubby still has major guilt issues. He "allowed" me to do Thanksgiving but will not lift a finger to help with the cooking. He begrudingly gave in and accepted me buying gifts for the kids for xmas but will not allow a tree in the house. I am still working on him though. Also Birthdays I do with the kids and he "comes along" but he is really not into it. Maybe as time passes he will lighten up. Lilly
(you have a christmas tree up already? cool)
Yep - an artificial 7 footer, with 1200 pre-attached lights. We still have some decorating to do on it and will enjoy that process over the next couple weeks.
Three years ago I would have had a heart attack even contemplating such things.
then I saw a show the other day......of Indians offended by the celebration. Many see it as a day of mourning when they lost their heritage and land.
Purps - never thought of that aspect. I would never consider it in that way. I have some Indian blood in me - Cherokee, so I will look into the way they view it. Of course I would never try to offend anyone. But the dubs might be offended around here.
Jeff
As someone of "native American" descent, I've grown gradually more uneasy with the concept of Thanksgiving, which was declared an official national holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Legend says it's designed to celebrate the generosity of the Indians who provided food and shelter to the pilgrims, only to see hundreds of indigenous tribes and Indian nations erased completely by these settlers and their descendents by way of war or slower death by broken promises and treaties.
http://homepage.mac.com/fingerprintinc8/blogwavestudio/LH20041027120350/LHA20051123184542/index.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1028666/posts?page=3Ann Curry: Indians "Feel Thanksgiving Should Be Day of Mourning" MRC ^ | Tuesday November 25, 2003 | BrentBaker
Posted on 11/25/2003 8:58:19 AM PST by
fight_truth_decayThanks for nothing. During an interview on Monday's Today with the author of a book urging families to learn more about the history of Thanksgiving and to appreciate being American, NBC's Ann Curry countered: "You know there are some American Indians who feel that Thanksgiving should be a day of mourning not a day of celebration because of what happened to their people."
Thanksgiving to the Native American Indians may not mean the same thing that it did to the white settlers in American History. To the Indians, Thanksgiving would mean a totally different thing. This was the beginning of their end - a time where they had given up their land in return for gifts that were full of disease - which would kill many of them later down the road.
http://www.indians.org/articles/thanksgiving.html
The Native Americans were said to be happy as well. Who wouldn’t be happy with a three-day feast? But they also likely realized the change that was taking place. Previously the only settlers on land, they now had to share the land and gave up their rights to Plymouth. So while the first Thanksgiving was a celebration for the Pilgrims because of new things to come, it was a goodbye of sorts for the Native Americans. Things would never be the same for them again.
It is also important to note that, although we celebrate Thanksgiving annually, the feast between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans was not repeated. Still, we are grateful for the first Thanksgiving.
http://www.native-languages.org/composition/thanksgiving.html
For thousands of years Indians had held thanksgiving ceremonies. Not long after the Puritans? arrival, these were replaced with gatherings for mourning. In 1970, a Wampanoag spoke at a ceremony marking the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's arrival:
"Today is a time of celebrating for you -- a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people. Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important."Every year, many Indians and their supporters gather at Plymouth Rock to protest and to remind us that Thanksgiving was instituted as a celebration of genocide. Most Indians honor the Creator at Thanksgiving, but remain mindful of all that has been lost.
http://www.salsa.net/peace/article49.html
The Indians were not invited to the 1621 feast out of the goodness of the Pilgrims' hearts in a demonstration of Christian love and interracial unity. The Wampanoag were members of a large confederacy known as the League of the Delaware. For six hundred years they had been defending themselves from the Iroquois, and for a hundred years they had also been encountering European slavers raiding coastal towns. Even though the Pilgrims viewed the Indians as instruments of the Devil, they were powerful and therefore needed to be courted until more Pilgrim colonists arrived. The Wampanoag were invited to that feast in order to negotiate a treaty that would secure land for the Pilgrims. The Indians, however, ended up bringing most of the food. They had already taught the Puritans how to hunt, fish, build houses, and survive.
Several years later, in 1637, 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Nation gathered for their annual Green Corn Ceremony in the area now known as Groton, Connecticut. While there, they were surrounded and attacked by mercenaries of the English and Dutch. Ordered out of the building, the Indians were shot as they exited. The rest were burned alive in the building. The next day, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "a day of thanksgiving" praising God that they had killed over 700 men, women and children.
For the next 100 years, every "thanksgiving day" ordained by a Governor or President was to honor that victory. As the balance of power shifted, ?King Phillip?s War? left most of the New England Indians either dead, exiled in Canada, or sold into slavery in the Carolinas by the Puritans. So successful was this early trade in Indian slaves that Puritan ship owners in Boston began raiding the Ivory Coast of Africa for slaves to sell to the colonies of the South, thus founding the American-based slave trade.
AK - Jeff
This is information that is new to me..........It's another part of history I did not know. It really should not have any bearing on the Thanksgiving holiday.....I don't know, I can certainly understand how the Indians felt. I kinda wish I had not said anything, I don't feel fanatical about it, or on a crusade. I have not "celebrated" Thanksgiving for 20 years.
My understanding is that Witnesses did not celebrate Thanksgiving as they give thanks every day, not just this one day. My family traditions that I grew up with and the ten years of traditions while I was married........are destroyed.
I am probably cynical.
purps
edited to add: To answer your question, I suppose I am still under the mind control. Or maybe I am past it.
Thanx purps for the info - you are clearly a kind and sensitive soul. It is my pleasure to know you here.
Jeff
