by pratt1 16 Replies latest jw friends
When I was twenty I was excited about celebrating Holiday's for my first time. As each passed I couldn't help but wonder what there was to be excited about.
I can enjoy a day off work for most, beyond that they seem like the average day.
Christmas is more of a hassle than a pleasure for me. It felt good to let my kids experience it.
I got my first Christmas tree in 20 years. I had help from the Internet in getting the lights up in a semiprofessional manner, and putting ornaments up all the way into the center of the tree. The thing looks semiprofessional, and I didn't have to hire anyone to lift a finger aside delivery.
I also have learned to appreciate Christmas music. While I was a Witless, I used to think of it as garbage. I also thought of the lights as a waste of electricity (if you use LEDs, you are only using 10% of the energy of regular bulbs). But, now I appreciate it as another wall between myself and those hounders, especially this one family that just about lived to see me bound to the cult.
I was indifferent to holidays before I was a JW, which made giving them up easy for me. I'm still indifferent to them, but I like the time off work.
W
lackadasical actually, not motivated either to ignore or participate.
Like I wished I'd never bothered - and that is when I've taken a flight out to sunnier places. I used to love the idea of a holiday that I could finally afford and splash out on family. I was just getting used to making a few plans - to make plans for the future for the first time in my life after being married and under repressive influences at close quarters since my late teens. The feeling was liberating but taking some getting used to until things went downhill again with family rifts etc. My heart hung on whilst on the way down for so very long. My heart couldn't believe the ambivalence of family after I'd hung in there so long and through what could have been much better years for me if I'd jumped ship. So it feels like: I've lost all sense of religious conviction and wasted my life in that general head space; lost all notion of the fact that my family have anything like the feelings for me that I had for them; lost all sense of ambition with respect to any career and job satisfaction; lost all sense of purpose in helping others as is my nature, and most repressing of all had my unconditional love and goodwill devalued into monopoly currency that nobody's interested in being around. The resultant heart condition is one of knowing that many people 'know not what they do' but that it's destroyed me nonetheless! And ??????????
Of course I leave the snowmen up until the snow is gone. Nothing pagan about snowmen.
I'm not so sure about that. I put up a scarcrow once becasue it was fall and looked cute in my garden, and I was told I might stumble someone.
lisa
I just love Xmas and Holidays...I feel HUMAN
