JW Children and the absence of Christmas (page 2)

Clam

Thanks folks for the illuminating replies thus far. Rebirth I found your post very moving.

Then there are the other two who are still in. They never have complained about it. I always picked them up early on the days of the parties at school and took them out to lunch and did something special with them. We also had parties for them and their friends frequently.

And as a family, we had specil days set aside to give presents and do things together. We tried to make it as painless as possible. But they still were different at school.

choosing life

My first part of my post didn't come through. I was stating that I have one grown son that truly hated being different in school. He is out now and raising his children with the joy of holidays. I am glad for them. I really never knew he was so affected until he rebelled as a teenager.

SirNose586

Growing up without having ever celebrated it has made me an Ebenezer Scrooge...can't stand the songs, the commercialism. Even if I tell the witnesses to get bent, I don't know how quickly I'd warm up to celebrating Christmas.

Jeffro

I don't have any problem with teaching kids that Santa isn't real. (He's not. Get over it. Also, see here.)

However, the exclusion that kids of JWs face at school during these holidays really isn't healthy, and while on its own it won't destroy a child psychologically, it certainly doesn't help.

Highlander

My family typically always went on a ski trip over the christmas holiday. That made for an easy reply when a friend or schoolmate asked what I got for christmas. I'd simpy tell him/her

that my family went on a family ski vacation together. In retrospect, I now believe that my dad(who is inactive) planned these trips during the christmas break for a reason.

He may have done it so as to create great family memories to look back on which in reality is a more balanced, healthy lifestyle than that of typical j-dubs that isolate themselves from

such wonderful holiday memories.

On a side note: I can't say it enough, but I love you Dad. You had the balls to fade away and attempted to bring balance into a family heavily influenced by this

frickin' cult.

TheListener

I had to sit in the principal's office for each holiday celebration and all the birthdays.

Sometimes they'd put a chair in the hallway outside the classroom. Imagine sitting there at 6 years old and hearing all your friends whooping it up and you're just slumped down in your chair feeling sorry for yourself.

A few kids made fun of me, but most just didn't understand. When asked why I didn't celebrate I took the easy way out and said my parents wouldn't let me. I hated it being different. I dreaded holiday time. As I got older it became more and more embarrassing to be so different. I would usually miss some school days around the holidays.

I know my parents were only trying to do what they thought was right. And even with that they also tried to ease the pain of being different when they could.

One teacher would wrap a piece of birthday cake up for me so I could eat it later; after the birthday. My mom would keep it for me until the next day so I could eat it after the birthday was over. Pharisaic? yes. But, I'm glad I got to have it.

Soledad

that is the #1 thing about growing up in the borg that screws me up even to this day. I absolutely dreaded having to go to school and talking with non-JW relatives around the holidays. I hated being the outcast I hated sitting in the back of an empty auditorium and I hated not being able to accept my relatives invitations for Christmas dinner.

Stephanus

Unfortunately, we ceased to be friends at a luau the class had a few months before the end of the school year.

The mind boggles! Hadn't the pig been bled properly, leading to a fists-flying, knock-down, drag-out argument?

Clam

Thanks for sharing your experiences everyone. It's pretty heartbreaking to read a lot of these accounts.

Jeff points to believing as a small child that he was proud to be doing what Jehovah wanted. I'm sure this belief could dilute the whole barrage of Christmas from a child's perspective, but to see the magic of Christmas everywhere and have to ignore it when you're so young must have been hard. Maybe in a lot of areas where multi-ethnic and religious schools are the norm, then little JWs don't feel as isolated.

It is good to read that many had parents who wanted to correct the balance and make sure their kids didn't miss out completely. But still I wonder what goes in in these little undeveloped minds when they're singled out. "I hated being the outcast I hated sitting in the back of an empty auditorium and I hated not being able to accept my relatives invitations for Christmas dinner". "Imagine sitting there at 6 years old and hearing all your friends whooping it up and you're just slumped down in your chair feeling sorry for yourself." And Nelly I loved your story about adverse publicity, LOL.

Clam

PS

I remember very clearly, when I was about 9, getting up on Christmas Eve, after everyone else had gone to bed and looking out the window over the city (we lived in a house on a hill overlooking the city of Seattle) to see if I could see Santa and his sleigh. I didn't stop believing in Santa. I just thought he didn't come to our house anymore

((Mulan)) that's well cute.

JW Children and the absence of Christmas

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