Last year I celebrated christmas with my parents. This was my first and last year as a JW. They are not Jw's and never have been. christmas has always been a very emotional time for my family. They are somewhat poor people, and they always prided themselves on giving us kids the best christmas that they could. Although I did exchange gifts with my parents, I was not there on christmas morning. I wish I had been, but my fear of being looked down upon in the cong. and fired (my boss was and elder in my cong.)caused me to stay away. This is the worst thing I could have done. I wanted to be there so bad christmas morning. I celebrated 21 christmas mornings with my parents, and the 22 one I missed. For what? The fear of reprisal from a religious group. How stupid could I have been. I see the pain that I caused my parents. They could care less about the gifts that I gave....sure they were appreciative....but they just wanted their son there christmas morning like he had been for the previous 21 years. That would have been the best gift in the world. I feel so much anger, pain, sorrow......I should have listened to my heart and gone. My parents taught me so much growing up. I have a lot of respect for them, and I know I let them down. That hurts. But I have learned a lesson. I will do what I believe to be right, not what someone else tells me is right. You do what you want, what you feel is right for yourself. You see, I hurt my parents bad that day, but I hurt myself worse. I have thrown the religious aspect of the holidays aside for now, all they are to me is a time for family and friends to be together. If someone else doesn't like that....oh well.
Christmas&Thanksgiving-Are you celebrating?
by Vitameatavegamin 44 Replies latest jw friends
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Francois
Am I celebrating the holidays?
Does the Pope wear a funny hat?
ft
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Pierced Angel
I plan on celebrating Christmas and anything else the kids and my husband feel like celebrating. I think my kids and I appreciate it a lot more and if that's one thing to thank the WT for, that would be it.
We have some good stories here,they'd make good made for tv movies for the holiday season, wouldn't they?I'm really excited about helping my daughter sew stockings for everyone and then filling them. I've always thought that sounded fun.
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blondie
I never saw where Christmas made a family happier. You were either happy already and it added to that or you were miserable and Christmas didn't fix it so made you more unhappy (why so many suicides at the time of year).
What's a little turkey at Thanksgiving...just call it something else.
Holidays don't help alcoholic families, families with abuse, etc. But of course you know that.
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Vitameatavegamin
Dogpatch and all others;
You have inspired me! You know, when I joined this forum in July, I was so afraid of posting on here I was almost shaking. I was terrified and guilt ridden. I was afraid that God was hating me at that very moment for questioning " His organization ". Slowly but surely, I am beginning to realize that maybe I am correct in how I feel. I do love God and what I feel He has in store for us. I do not believe God is as shallow as JWs make him out to be. It does make sense when yoy finally stop and think.....why would he care about some matters that in all reality are trivial. If God did not want us to be free moral agents, he would not have given us brains to think with. If we were all meant to be mindless drones, I guess we would have been created that way. And also, as people, we have to have society as we know it, a civiliazation. Centuries have passed and with new generations, our customs change. What meant something 500 years ago, no longer holds the same meaning now.
This is all so enlightening, It's kind of like a light has switched on. I am beginning to wonder where I have been all these years!
I want to thank everyone since I have joined for giving me so much new info and so many sensible and logical reasonings! Believe me, I still have a ways to go, but I think I am getting there! Keep posting all!!
Love, Vita
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JeffT
We started celebrating everything as we were leaving in the fall of 1988. People who don't know all of our history, but know we've been married for 27 years are confused by our hallmark ornament: "1988-Our first Christmas together."
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Esmeralda
Last year was my first year with a tree. The year before that, my husband got me gifts, but we didn't have decorations.
I wrote this last year, about the time my family freaked out having seen my first tree all up and twinkling.
"What the holidays mean to me" a post by Esmeralda which could also be
called:"Have yourself a merry little..." ( Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, insert holiday of choice here)
OR,
"Why the artificial tree in my living room has nothing to do in my mind with the plastic baby Jesus in the nativity scene outside City Hall."
I'm awake at this inhuman hour (at least for me) before the sun sipping my coca cola trying to ease my sour stomach. Another night of sleep lost, courtesy of the 'higher moral values' of my Jehovah's Witness relatives. Thank you very much.
The M.S. is acting up this morning and my left hand is really weak. I can't really feel my fingers on the keys so that's slowing me down in typing. But this is stuck in my head and if I don't get it out, I won't be able to go back to sleep. So bear with me, (and if you care to), read on and find out why to me, (just one 29 year old mommy
from the Midwest) the 'holy days' of this season have nothing at all to do with their origin.This is the first year of my life I have owned a "Christmas" tree. I am fully aware of the ramifications of this in the mind of my Witness
relatives."Paganism! Idolatry! False Worship!"
Okay. Take that opinion if you want. Have any of you contemplated the
significance/ origin of your wedding rings lately?"Saturnalia! Roman Orgies! Sugar-coated rituals that displease God!"
Looked at the names of the months on your calendar, have you? Going to start calling the months by other names? Perhaps the names of the 12 apostles instead? Oh, but then what would you do about Judas? No good naming a month after him. What to do?
"Greed! Commercialism! "Holidays" have nothing to do with religion anymore anyway!"
And...this is a bad thing? I thought you didn't like the fact that they had anything to do with religion to begin with!!!
While I was standing in the long lines of frustrated shoppers at Toys R Us last month, (I shopped early) I had a lot of time to think about what Christmas means to most of them. It looked like, to many of them, the most religious experience associated with the whole thing was knowing they got the last Rugrats singing doll and that their kid wouldn't be crying come December 25th.
December 25th. Hmm. Which just so happens to be my daughters birthday. Boy does that cloud the issue even more for my family.
"Birthdays! Only Murderers in the Bible Celebrated them! Glorifying the creation and not the Creator!"
And...anniversary celebrations would be glorifying what? If you reduce it down to the bare facts for most JW couples, couldn't you say that anniversary celebrations are really having a party to remember and glorify the first time they, um, consummated? (If they behaved according to the rules, that is). Is that really proper, brothers?
My point in all of this is, the plastic fir tree in my living room (four and a half feet tall, pre-wired with 200 gold lights, brought to you by Hammacher Schlemmer) has nothing to do with anything except showing my child a broader view of the world. Understanding of others. Tolerance. Something with which I can make an impression on my young, impressionable child to counteract the indoctrination campaign my ex and the rest of my family have embarked upon.
With connecting myself to my new family, my husband's parents, who flew all the way out here to cook me turkey on Thanksgiving and bring family heirloom ornaments that pre-date my husband's birth in their family.
Precious things, to them. Sacred things, because family is a sacred thing.
Not a religious symbol in the lot of them.
There are tiny glittered ornaments that my husband (JackDawson to those of you who've seen him post here before) made with his little fingers at the same age my daughter is now. Crystal ones that say "baby's first Christmas" from before even then.
My mother in law hauled these, carefully wrapped in tissue all the way from New England. On a cramped, over crowded flight to here, a major airline hub.
Through the crowds. In the cold. That's love, folks.
All so she could sit on my living room floor, with her 'step' granddaughter (though no one in our family ever uses that harsh term) and hang them on our little Hammacher Schlemmer.
Each ornament has a story. We sat for hours, drinking coffee and laughing as myself and my daughter got a lesson in family history from my husband's parents.
"Remember when Grandma made this one? Remember the year we got this one? Remember how the cat loved to bat at this one at the bottom of the tree when he was a kitten?"
I learned. We bonded. We became better acquainted in a way that never could have happened any other way.
It's also not about the gifts. Though, shopping for them has been a lot of fun for me (thank the Universe for online shopping). I have also enjoyed having an excuse to thank people in my life who've been especially kind to me in the past year, in a way that at other times may have seemed odd or even inappropriate. When else can you send a tin of cookies to your wonderful dentist or top-notch neurologist and not be thought a nutcase?
Many people have compared life in the Watchtower to the alien species of the Borg from Star Trek. For those of you who know the genre well, my next comparison will be familiar. For those who don't, I hope that this will still make sense in the end. Bear with me.
There is a planet in the Star Trek universe called Bajor. I have always particularly related to the inhabitants of this fictitious world, because of their tortured and confused relationship with their religion, and their deities, "The Prophets".
The Prophets are shrouded in mystery, and vague generalities but are never to be questioned. (Much like the Governing Body) Whatever happens to the people, pestilence, famine, abuse from the bigger, uglier alien planet next door, is said to be "the Will of the Prophets" for one reason or another.
These folks want to live good lives, have a sense of spirituality, and just 'be' in the universe. Much like a lot of people in/out of the whole Watchtower environment. But no matter what they do, they're unsure of what the almighty Prophets want. Because everything is so vague.
SOUND FAMILIAR?
The Society (though I hear they don't call themselves that anymore) uses the same old vague and muddied issues to keep people from reaching out to each other. They are supposed to show such love, even 'loving their enemies' and yet, what do they do? They insult, belittle, and ridicule the principles and beliefs that people of other Christian and Non Christian religions alike hold most
dear. The holidays are but one example.If Christmas makes people stop and think about Jesus, is that so bad? If it doesn't, but makes them show kindness that they ordinarily wouldn't in their busy day to day lives to someone else, is THAT so bad? If it causes them to reach into themselves and realize how lucky they are and give something to someone less fortunate, is that so bad?
I don't believe it is. To me, this time of year is just a great big reminder of how lucky I am. For my warm bed. The food in the fridge. The love of my husband and child, and in laws. The fact that I'm alive.
And that is definitely not bad. I have a lot of things to be grateful for.
Gratitude! I knew I'd brought up the Bajorans for another reason.
The Bajorans have a great celebration every year known as the Gratitude Festival.
This excerpt is taken from the Star Trek Encyclopedia (forgive me,
Viacom/Paramount) and explains pretty much how I'd like to celebrate. This is a holiday philosophy I can really get behind:"Bajoran Gratitude Festival:
Annual Bajoran celebration, the biggest holiday of the year. During the holiday, participants wrote down their problems on Renewal Scrolls then placed them to be burned in a special brazier so that their troubles could symbolically turn to ashes. "Peldor Joi" is a Bajoran phrase used in celebration of the festival."
Gratitude. Problems symbolically turning to dust. Thinking about something bigger than ourselves, even if only for a little while.
That's what I'm going to be celebrating this year.
Peldor Joi, everyone.
~Esmeralda
I am really looking forward to the getting Hammacher out of his box and lighting him up for the "gratitude festival" once again this year, even though times are tight and we'll be cutting back on the presents...that's not what its about. We've had a hell of a year and it'll be good to think it through, then let it go before the new one begins.
I can't wait.
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Billygoat
*clapping loudly*
((((Essie)))) Your writing gets better with every post, my dear! Thanks for sharing last years thoughts with us. Your timing is perfect for what I'm dealing with lately. Thank you!
Peldor Joi,
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hillbilly
I'm to cheeeeeep for X-mas----However turkey is on sale most of NOV and DEC---------dont expect a card---they cost MONEY!
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Nathan Natas
Hi everybody,
My experience is a little different.
I was raised a JW from about age 7 and have very few memories of Xmases before that. My family broke up when my bitter and angry Mom decided to walk with Jah (HA!), and she kept me away from ALL my relatives. To make up for that I had no friends. Mom thought they were "bad" for me, and I learned much later that other kids' parents thought I was "bad" for their kids. Such joy!
I spent about 20 years in the Borg, and when I got out I found that I had no "emotional context" for the holidays. To me Xmas and Thanksgiving have the same "emotional context" as phoney Kwanza or Muslim Ramadan.
I tried going through the motions with new worldly friends, but it felt hollow.
After the big holiday meals the hollow feeling was gone, so I dig the holiday meals.
I think I'm at least of average generousity - but I give gifts spontaneously, when the mood strikes me, instead of waiting for some institutionalized "give gifts" signal. This seems to surprise and maybe confuse people, but they don't complain.