It is to my belief,, that this Rutherford was separated from his wife and kid(s) through the latter years of his life.
He saw pictures of them enjoying themselves enjoying the holidays,,,,he was miserable about that. He went on to revoke any holidays and/ birthdays etc,,,
You never hear any JW giving any solid argument against holidays other than some flimsy,,feeble ""blah,blah,blah pagan" or what not. Flimsy answer,, nothing really solid. Actually,,everything any human does on this earth,, is pagan.
Some of the most heavy-handed, man-made rules come from the Rutherford,, followed by Knorr era.