As a witness did you secretly celebrate holidays?

Dimples

When I was a witness I knew of many who would either celebrate certain holidays in secret or make up for them some other way. Such as, family day ( Christmas ) costume parties ( Halloween ), I even knew several who made it a point to go see the fireworks on the 4th of July. My mother told a wife of an elder that she always felt weird on Mother's day for not sending a card to her Mom, because her Mom expected one. The wife told her to send a thinking of you card instead so she could make her mother happy and not break any rules.

I became a witness after I was an adult and had a child. I always missed Christmas. I had some wonderful memories of Christmas as a child and I felt bad that my kids couldn't experience it. We had our first Christmas as a family in 2000 and the kids loved it. We have been making all kinds of holiday memories since.

Just wondering what have you all done to substitute holidays or what have you experienced what others did. Also, what holiday did you miss the most and wish you could have celebrated?

For me it was Christmas and birthdays

Dimples

Country_Woman

I went to my family on birthdays - and refuged to say "happy birthday" with my mum (who was JW too).

I missed 'Sinterklaas' or 'Sint Nicolaas' the Dutch variant of your Santa Claus on the 5th december most of all.

Brummie

Wished I had but never did. Still battled with Christmas even after I had left. I love it now though.

Brummie

Gadget

I always used to go to the christmas parties and nights out at work. We enjoyed them so much, we kept deciding to have reruns.

Gadget

iiz2cool

I went out to celebrate some of the holidays with friends from work. Not that I cared anything for the holidays. I was just interested in the party, whatever the occasion.

Walter

Canadian District Overbeer

Prisca

Being a born-and-bred staunch JW, I never knew what it was like to celebrate a holiday or birthday so I didn't know what I was missing out on.

Because I was such a strict JW, I never got involved in any work parties nor secretly celebrated either.

Even now, in the 4 years that I've been out I've only attended 2 birthday parties (kids) and have only celebrated Christmas once.

Panda

During the last few years yes. Before that even a pseudo Christmas with other JWS. And always Thanksgivings (almost forgot that one). Yeah turkey and everything BUT we weren't celebrating Thanksgiving, nope it's just that turkey is cheap that time of year. My birthday my last few months in the borg, my Dad's birthday ... that last year I was b'rthday manic. I'll nev er forget the non-Christmas dinner! Table decorations of greens and reds, candles plaid ribbon gold candles red berries.. well you know that's winter florals for ya! Oh and how about those Super Bowl parties! Our PO even used to attend those. Lots of drinking for that one.

freedom96

I never had a problem with attending a birthday party. Later in my JW life, I attended Thanksgiving.

It's funny, after "celebrating" these forbidden holidays, they just are not a big deal. But, the WTS has to make everything so difficult, so different than everyone else.

They would be a much bigger religion if they just would be normal.

Stephanus

BUT we weren't celebrating Thanksgiving, nope it's just that turkey is cheap that time of year.

A stupid argument. Why don't Dubs just eat sausages all year round? They're cheaper than turkey at any time of the year!

Country Girl

We always had a "dinner" on Thanksgiving, although we didn't do thanksgiving rituals. My Dad owned his own business, and wasn't a Witness, so he'd always have that day off. He'd stay home and Mom would make a big dinner of lamb (since we are Mediterannean) and invite friends (non-Witnesses) over. It was a special day, but not like the other kids' houses.

We could get Christmas presents and say "thank you" but couldn't give them or acknowledge the holiday.

We could also get Valentine's Day cards, but could not give them out. How embarassing. We could sing "winter" songs, like "Frosty The Snowman." But if it mentioned Christ or Christmas, we were s*it outta luck.

What was really horrible is that when I got out, I had nowhere to go on Thanksgiving, since my family didn't celebrate. Luckily, I had nice people I worked with that would invite me to their houses. So I spent the first 10 years after I got out with people from work, whch was good! I wish I could tell them how much it meant to me.

CG

As a witness did you secretly celebrate holidays?

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