Posts by Cellist

51

So when do you put up your tree?

by restrangled in

jw
friends

i hope you all had a great thanksgiving..... my husband was so inspired he went up to the attic and dragged down our tree the same day (the 23)... i have been decorating for 2 days serenaded by vince geraldi's charlie brown christmas music.

for some reason it feels extra special this year.

perhaps because after waffling for years with the witnesses i was finally able to let go this summer after finding this site.. so when are you putting up your christmas tree?.

Cellist

Wow! It sounds like she really does need to cut back a bit. Symphony playing is high stress stuff. Sheherezade is quite an energetic piece. I'm not that good of a player. I took up the cello as an adult, for a hobby. We played for quite a few years in our local orchestra (my husband plays violin), but we dropped out this year. We're only going to play with a small group of people that we've been playing with for years now. We have a lot of fun, it's not nearly as serious. No, I'm not familiar with that gathering that your MIL attends. But then, we're just amateurs. That's wonderful that she plays for you at Christmas. I think that music really adds to Christmas. Those carols with the wonderful harmonies! I never get tired of them. The first time we played backup to a choir, we almost forgot to play when they started singing Silent Night. It was soooo beautiful that we just wanted to stop and listen!

Blondie, No. We've never put up an advent tree. It's not a custom that my family has ever practised. At least, not in my time. Is it connected to an ethnic group, religion or area? We do have the custom of the children opening one small gift every day leading up to Christmas day. But that's just to keep the anticipation from building to a fever pitch.

Cellist

51

So when do you put up your tree?

by restrangled in

jw
friends

i hope you all had a great thanksgiving..... my husband was so inspired he went up to the attic and dragged down our tree the same day (the 23)... i have been decorating for 2 days serenaded by vince geraldi's charlie brown christmas music.

for some reason it feels extra special this year.

perhaps because after waffling for years with the witnesses i was finally able to let go this summer after finding this site.. so when are you putting up your christmas tree?.

Cellist

restrangled,
Thank you. It took me a week just to get the lights on last year. I'm hoping to be a little faster this year. What I really like about my tree is that most of what goes on it has been a gift from someone. Not that I'm cheap, I've put out plenty of money for Christmas decorations. It just seems to make the tree more special.

Yes, I play the cello. I'm 5'3" (and a half), not too much bigger than your MIL. My fellow cellist in our ensemble is 85 and about the same height as me. I'm afraid that his days are numbered too. Because there's two of us, he's able to leave the harder passages to me when he feels too tired (or confused). One of our clarinet players is also in his 80's. They're wonderful people and we hope to keep them playing with us as long as possible. Tomorrow afternoon we're all getting together to go over our Christmas music. I have a few new arrangements for us to try. Does your MIL ever play for you after Christmas dinner? There are a few musically inclined people who come to dinner here and we try to have singing and carols in the evening. I made up a bunch of little books with the words.

Happy decorating!
Cellist

51

So when do you put up your tree?

by restrangled in

jw
friends

i hope you all had a great thanksgiving..... my husband was so inspired he went up to the attic and dragged down our tree the same day (the 23)... i have been decorating for 2 days serenaded by vince geraldi's charlie brown christmas music.

for some reason it feels extra special this year.

perhaps because after waffling for years with the witnesses i was finally able to let go this summer after finding this site.. so when are you putting up your christmas tree?.

Cellist

I'm happy to hear about so many people getting their freedom to enjoy life, friends and family!

Traditionally, Christmas is a very busy time for me. So, I never bothered decorating. We always went to my parents' place anyway. Then, we started to have Christmas dinner here when my husband's family started joining my family for Christmas. (We have the largest house, so they all figured that it was our duty. lol) Then I had to decorate, but I still had no tree. No time to buy one, and no decorations to put on it. Nobody could stand our "treeless state". My sister-in-law gave us her 3 foot tree. Friends gave us ornaments. And, voila, we had a Christmas tree. It finally drove my sister-in-law crazy to see that 3 foot tree in our big, vaulted ceiling family room, so last year when she bought herself a new tree, she gave us her old one. Well, when I first put it up last year and put all the ornaments I had on it, it looked sooooo ugly and bare. I think it was the ugliest tree I'd ever seen. But ornaments seemed to keep showing up from different quarters and, by Christmas dinner time, everyone was oooing and ahhing over how beautiful it was. With that, I'm so encouraged, I think I'll get the tree out a bit earlier this year. Maybe the first week of Dec.

Cellist (of the "had too much wine with dinner" class)

14

Bible Jokes (as lame as the ones we used to pass around when we were JW's)

by TheHypnoToad in

q. what do they call pastors in germany?

a. german shepherds.

q. who was the greatest financier in the bible?

Cellist

The only sick joke I remember from my JW days is: "What did the Pope say when he saw the Devil? 'Oh my god!'" Yes, I know .... groan.

Cellist

P.S. IPSec, those were really, really bad. LOL

22

...and remember, smile!

by tetrapod.sapien in

jw
friends

here is my naturalized and humbled opinion and intention.

have a beatifically beautiful day!:.

i believe it to be a truism that the nature of the universe is indifference, to us.

Cellist

Nice to see you're doing all right. You didn't get into those magic mushrooms out there in B.C., did you? LOL And .... I'm smiling!

Cellist

19

BOE letter dealing with old sins

by Masterji in

jw
friends

.

is there a letter to the boe that stated that if an elder confessed to having committed a serious sin a number of years ago, (three years or so) and nobody knew about it, he need not be removed?

Cellist

I don't know about recently, but about a dozen years ago or so, one of the "anointed" (who was also an elder) was disfellowshipped for an "old sin" that he hadn't confessed. I don't know how old the sin was or what it's nature, he would only say, "an old sin that I covered up". He was a Gilead grad., former missionary and had just given a talk at our D.C., so it was rather a shock to everyone when he was df'd. But, all this is old news in JW land, they could've changed the procedure a dozen times between now and then.

Cellist

34

Does anyone remember?

by Pahpa in

i'm an oldtimer.

but does anyone else remember the "demon scare" back in the 60s or 70s?

the watchtower came out with articles about demon possession.

Cellist

We were watching the news one night when we were newly baptised JWs and the Pope came on. He was visiting our city. Just as he raised his arms out, the TV died! All that was left was a thin white line where his arms were. The TV never did work again. How do you think that would be interpreted? LOL

On a more serious (?) note, my husband's stepmonster wouldn't eat the vegetables that a kind worldly relative gave them. They were demonized! So, she fed them to the pigs. Then, they ate the pig. Somehow the pig exorcised the demons I guess. Everything was demonized to that woman. And, yes, that was in the 70's.

Cellist

14

Cheap-ass Watchtower tapes!

by Nosferatu in

jw
friends

i recieved 4 tapes of kingdom melodies from lee (thanks lee!

) so, i shoved one into my tape deck so i could hear "stay awake, stand firm, grow mighty" for the first time in ten years (man, that sounds like a song about my penis).

however, i discovered that the pressure pads have gotten crusty and fell out of two of these tapes, and the cheap bastards at watchtower didn't put screws in their tapes so i could easily fix them!