The first Christmas I remember was when I was 5 years old. My mother was a Witness and my father was Catholic. My father had a tradition of putting up the Christmas tree after all my sisters and brother went to sleep on Christmas eve. We got up early Christmas morning, before sunrise, went down to the living room and there was a huge tree with many wrapped presents underneath. The only lights on were the lights on the tree. It was still dark outside so it created such a beautiful glow in the room. I remember how excited I was. We woke up my mother and father to come out so we could open the presents.
Then, just before we started opening presents, I'll never forget what my mother said to me. Her words struck me so hard that I can still remember every detail of that moment. My mother and I were standing in the kitchen and I could see the tree glowing in the living room. There were no lights on in the house except the glow from the lights on the tree. She was wearing a flannel nightgown and I was in my pajamas. I remember exactly where I was standing and can still see the room frozen in my minds eye right down to the decorative white plate of hard "ribbon candy" on the round walnut table behind her. I looked up to her and asked "is it okay to open the presents?" She replied, in a very kind and sincere way: "You can celebrate Christmas but you know how Jehovah feels about that Paul!"
My world forever changed when I heard those words. I instantly felt so torn and guilty. I couldn't enjoy anything after that and started a long descent into depression. Things went downhill from there.