Early on, after we left JW land, my wife said to me, “I hope you don’t care, but I don’t ever see myself doing any Christmas stuff. I don’t really understand why some ex jws decide to do that crap.” We agreed that parties were a little different because of the social aspects, but other wise I didn’t care. Now… there’s a 16’ Douglas Fir with ornaments and lights in our living room. What the hell happened?
For a little perspective, we walked away from our JW lives about 12 years ago. Even before we left, we realized that we would lose most, if not all of our social contacts and needed to work hard to build a new social network. At one point, about a year after we left I remember my wife crying and saying, “I know we did the right thing, but, I think we're going to end up being a lonely old couple.” The idea of making a whole new group of friends seemed almost impossible to her.
Well, we worked at it, and now, we struggle with the problem of having too many nice people in our lives to keep up with. Our Christmas tree is an integral part of that story.
About seven or eight years ago, we had started to get to know a woman named Jenni and her family because we’d been volunteering at a nature reserve that we loved (my family used to fish salmon with dynamite there… and poach deer etc. I thought I’d give a little something back lol). Jenni’s one of the scientists that works at the reserve. Jenni and her husband organized a yearly Christmas tree cutting hike with a group of their friends. For three or four years she’d invite us, but we’d decline because we “weren’t in to the Christmas stuff”. Jenni knew a bit about our story, her and her friends were not religious, they just like having the Christmas tree. But, every year she’d invite us to join in.
At a certain point, I realized that Jenni and her husband had a lot of people in their social network, but they only invited a small number on their Xmas tree hike. It really was nice to be invited and I told my wife , we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, we should at least go on the hike, we don’t have to get a tree. At this point we’d also become friends with some of the other people who went on the hike.
So, we went with the group on the hike. My wife had a lot of funny feelings about the whole thing because of her aversion to Christmas. On the other hand, we were with a group of really nice people, so that made it better. The group was spread out along the way, people with kids were slower, I was up in front, my wife was way behind talking with someone.
About halfway in, someone came running up to me, “Queequeg! Your wife’s been hurt! She’s bleeding pretty badly!” Shit! I turned around and ran full tilt down the logging road.
When I got to her, she had her hand wrapped in a very bloody handkerchief. We had brought a few cutting tools to help people get trees and maybe clear a trail if needed. My wife was carrying a machete. I sharpen the shit out of my tools. I work in the construction trades and I like to have sharp tools. She had just shown someone how sharp her stupid husband keeps his tools and had put the machete back in its sheath… but didn’t attach the safety strap around the hilt. A minute or two later, someones dog came up to her begging to have her throw a stick, she bent over to get the stick and the machete fell out severing the entire fleshy pad of one of her fingers down to the bone. Just a little strip of skin was holding it on. Pardon my French, but it was bleeding like a motherfucker! I’d brought my work van and had a first aid kit in it so we hurried back. Yeah, I hadn’t kept up with it and nothing was usable, crumbly brown bandages.
We made the hour drive back to town. We got to the Intermediate Care at our clinic ten minutes too late, so we had to go to the Emergency Room at the hospital. Even with insurance, that ended up costing $900!
We drove home a little bummed out. When we got home… there was a beautiful tree waiting on our deck! Of course, we felt obligated to set it up in our house. Our friends also realized that we probably didn’t have any ornaments, so the next day they brought us a box full of ornaments that they had made and also bought for us!
A week or so later, my wife said, “I hate to say this, but, I love having this tree in our house!” For us, it’s a symbol of where we’ve been and how far we’ve come. It’s a symbol of the great people who have welcomed us into their lives since we left Watchtower world. The tree smells fresh and combined with the lights it brightens the crazy winter days and nights.