I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas!!! Well, in spite of being pretty sick before and during Christmas with a sinus infection that spread to my optic nerve, and not being able to enjoy shopping and going to the Christmas parties my hubby and I were invited to, I had an extremely enjoyable Christmas with my children anyway. Being stuck in the house left a lot of time to decorate. My adult children, who are not disfellowhipped, but have chosen to leave the WT, are married to spouses who have JW parents and relatives. My daughter's in laws are elders, elderettes, pioneers, missionaries, bethelites.. Consequently, they celebrate Christmas in secret with us because not wanting to be officially df'd and shunned by the family. So even though we get together and celebrate and exchange gifts around the Christmas tree, and enjoy this day totally, they are unable to show outwardly that they participate in this holiday, and all other holidays, and birthdays. This is really sad how Watchtower reaches it's long "arm" into families trying to shed those twisted doctrines and lead normal lives. I am so glad my kids chosen to "leave" this awful religion. My son, who's in laws are JW's have been a little more open about celebrating and decorating, and this year even exchanged gifts with JW in laws. In view of all the good of this, I cringe at the ariticle about "Apostates" in the recent Watchtower magazine. Has anyone else here had to celebrate Christmas with exiting JW relatives in secret because of the df'ing issue?
Celebrating Christmas in Secret with "Apostates" Comments Please?
by ARoarer 12 Replies latest jw friends
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Carmel
Can't say as I have but your story is facinating!
Carmel
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IWasDuped
This was our first "secret" celebration. We had a two foot tree which we kept in our child's room until xmas morning. I was glad we did have a special celebration but it had a bit of a black cloud over it having to be so covert. Just want to give our kids special memories but don't want to be df'd (currently fading). It felt weird because I have always been a pretty upfront, forthright person (in the borg) and I'm not used to hiding things. So my emotions ranged from happiness in celebrating to anger that we have to hide.
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ARoarer
((((IWasDuped)))) I remember for several years I would celebrate in secret also, because I had so many very dear friends in the org. and didn't want to stumble them or risk the consequences of discipline for me and my family. Looking back on that I have learned two things. 1, it gave a mixed message to my children, and 2, in the end the people who I thought were dear friends, in reality were not. Jehovah's Witnesses do not understand what real friendship is. The tell you they "love" you while they succomb to messages of hatred and intolerance. A perfect example of this is the latest message of hatred and intolerance in thier recent WT against those who left their organization. You are doing a good thing by disconnecting from such damaging teachings.
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Special K
Aroarer..
I would be interested to read this latest WT article that you speak about..
Has anyone posted any excerps from it here recently.?
sincerely
special K
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Special K
OH.. and by the way..
My first celebration with my little kids was a secret one..
the second one wasn't so secret because I couldn't see denying them the celebration just because I was still a bit screwed up in the head about it.
the third christmas was great, ...(because we were disfellowshipped by then)...
sincerely
Special K
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Kenneson
Special K,
There is currently a discussion on this W.T. article on apostates. You will want to check
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Kenneson
Let's try again.
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ARoarer
Kenneson, there are several threads about it.
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Silence
I must say I did find this thread interesting.
I have been what would be classified as an inactive JW for approxamitely 3 years now. My ex husband was the type of JW that only really put in an appearance when our marriage was right on the edge of ending so his sincerity was never genuine to begin with. He introduced xmas to our children last year for the first time. For the children it was a bit strange because they'd never had anything to do with xmas celebrations before. When I explained it to them throughout the years it was never a case of "This is what Jehovah expects of us." It was along the lines of "Santa is not real and I have no intention of lying to you and pretending some fat man in a red suit is giving you gifts that come from me" and "Millions of people the world over celebrate this day of the year all at the same time and the only people it serves in the end are the shopkeepers who make lots of money when people buy presents they can't afford for people they nine times out of ten don't even like just because they'll be guilt tripped if they don't follow the masses by doing what everyone else does."
I try to raise my kids to be individuals with a mind of their own. To me - even though I'm no longer an active JW - It would be equally hypocritical to celebrate an occasion that I believe was introduced to make Christianity more palatable to the non Christians and has grown to become one of the most money raking ventures known throughout history. It is the time of year when people experience the highest level of stress, womens refuges the world over are full to overflowing, domestic violence drastically increases just to mention only a few side effects from this celebration of goodwill to all men.
Ohhhh yes please - Do sign me up!
One of the things I appreciate the most about my 14 years as a JW - I saw through the shallow traditions of such things for what they really are.
I still have what I call "Family love you days" for my children and it's when I can afford it and it's never at the same time of year or even only once a year. It is a genuine "Love you Day" and I would never want to trade what I have with them on those days for the shallow meaningless "Duty Day" that Xmas is for the majority of people.
Just one last note: I have 5 children ranging from 22 - 8 and for the last two years running all of them have expressed that they don't actually like xmas and can't understand their fathers insistence on them doing it. The 8 year old said quite plainly that he enjoyed having family days much more because he could see why we did it. He simply doesn't understand the fat man in the red suit thing and wonders whether or not people have heard of stranger danger and if they have then why on earth would they encourage their children to go and sit on a total strangers lap when he clearly wears a hairy mask over his face.