One thing that's good about being a witnessi (page 3)

Blackfalcon98

@stuckinarut, Congrats man! Every little bit counts, and reaffirms your relationship.

stuckinarut2

Thanks Blackfalcon98!

Yes, I consider it progress that my wife hasnt resorted to the "cult responses"!

We get together as a family , have the traditional food and wine/beer , decorations etc., about 20 of us all told ,half of which are ex jw`s , and none of us practice religion of any sort. And we even exchange presents under the Kris Kringle concept .

As I understand it each household buys two presents , one male ,one female for a set amount of dollars , eg .$ 20:00 and then exchange them .

Its a good excuse for family to get together , enjoy each others company , have some fun and games and have a good time.

smiddy

likeabird

No that's not a good thing about being a witness.

As many comments show Christmas doesn't have to be about verspending or spending a lot. It doesn't have to mean fighting the Christmas crowds (online shopping doesn't get too crowded ;-)

It's about spending time with people you like being with or sharing with people that might be less fortunate. It's about breaking delicious bread over hearty conversations.

Quite simply it's an amazing bright social arrangement that brings people together at what would otherwise be the darkest time of the year (at least for those of us shivering away up here in the very dark northern hemisphere).

WTWizard

You can stretch the work for a longer period. Start in July or August, and get most of the gifts and decorations during summer. That way, you spend as you go, avoiding a whopper of a bill. It is often possible to get most of your important shopping done before Halloween, even going online where the best businesses exist.

If you have children, you might schedule one in-season shopping trip for them. That will expose them to the sights and sounds of the holidays, without you being under so much pressure to buy everything. It can be a just plain fun occasion for them. Also, they get to decorate the Christmas tree (if you got an artificial one, you could have got it in July or August as well). It goes up on your time table, and they get to help. If they are old enough, they might even get the Christmas tree as their "chore". When that happened to me, it was more fun than work trying to make it look as spectacular as possible with what I had to work with, which was never enough. Even toddlers might enjoy putting up one non-breakable ornament. Letting small children play with electrical cords or glass ornaments can be dangerous, though.

If the tree seemed skimpy, don't worry too much. Starting in January, you start buying items to buff it for next year. Underlit trees can be fixed if you get LED lights--there are sights like Christmas Lights Etc and 1000 Bulbs that sell Christmas LED strings all summer. Maybe you get one string a month--that will add to 840 lights. Or, if you want to save on handling charges, you might get them in bigger batches and still get more lights. You have the whole summer, taking most of the panic away from the situation. Just remember to pick up storage reels for your lights so you will not have any tangled lights next year.

OnTheWayOut

There are way better ways to escape the commercialism of Christmas besides being a member of a dangerous mind-control cult.

adjusted knowledge

My second christmas with my daughter. She is only 14 months old. I only have memory of one christmas as a child. I was around 4 or 5 years old when my parents converted to JW. It is so nice to experience the holidays now.

FadeToBlack

I feel really bad for my mother (never a JW) looking back at all those years I deprived her of the complete package for Christmas. Sure she had my sisters and their families over for the occasion, but I know it had to hurt that I wasn't there with my family. No way to get back that time. To her credit, she never turned her back on me and has always been there when I needed her. So now that I'm out, I'm trying to finally be the son she never really had. Unfortunately, I'm 57 and she is in her 70's, so we don't don't have a lot of time left to make up for lost togetherness.

Maybe that can be my goal for next year: save up to get back to the states for a family Christmas. We would all probably have a good cry. Damn....

One thing that's good about being a witnessi

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