by chuckyy 58 Replies latest jw friends
Just wondering if anyone still does NOT celebrate xmas since leaving jws.....or like me do you think"to hell with it", and join in the festivities. If you do celebrate it, do you still have pangs of guilt for celebrating this "pagan" festival???
chukky
Still don't celebrate it. Why should I? It has no meaning for me and I don't have any peer pressure to do so. I choose not to. At this point I don't make an issue of it with people, live and let live.
W.Once
I celebrated it as a mostly secular holiday for about 10 years. My non-JW family did it so I went along with it- that made them happy.
My kids liked the gifts, but never got into the exchange part of gift giving very well. Now that I am Jewish, we do Chanukkah and out daughter is counting the night down to Friday night. Eight nights of gift giving is great for Jewsih kids. We watch the Christmas shows , like "Miracle on 34th street", too. It's entertainment for us.
I dont -it would piss the wife off and get me disfellowshipped
don't celebrate it. Why should I? It has no meaning for me and I don't have any peer pressure to do so. I choose not to. At this point I don't make an issue of it with people, live and let live.
I feel it... For me, I participated, but never celebrated up until about 3 x-mas's ago.... It's not the holiday itself, it's the post x-mas blues/let down... I mean, I would get myself all hyped, and then afterwards, I would be very depressed, cause i would see the relationship my friends had with their parents, blah, blah, blah...
I also take issue with the commercialism... I mean if it was all about "joy to the World" and "Peace", i might be down with it... if everyone spent the money they did on trees, lights, presents, wrapping paper, gas, etc... and the time that it takes to put it together... and devoted it to world peace, blah, blah, blah.. it might actually be a nice thing to "celebrate"
I guess in part, if i were to participate again i'd rather spend my christmas day working in a kitchen that helps feed the under privlaged, or something like that...
Hope that makes sense...
PEACE, Mike
I don't and I probably never will again. Been there, done that, anyway.
Warlock
I think it makes a big difference if you have small children. We celebrate because we love seeing the the excitement on our kids faces. If we didn't have kids, we probably wouldn't celebrate it.
We do it, but it is more about being around family than anything else. We are going to Ohio to visit my aunt and lots of family will be coming around. I will have my 8 yr old JW daughter there....so we have already planned that if anyone is "opening presents" we'll go watch a movie or something. I guess that is the part of it all that seems like the "celebrating" part. I think of the celebrating being more of cooking together and being off work, playing in the snow and drinking hot chocolate.....Mmmmmm, Can't wait!
And, the guilt is gone!
We celebrate, but it has no religious meaning whatsoever since my wife and I are atheist.
Why? For the simple reason its fun to give and receive gifts, its an opportunity for some quiet quality time together. And frankly, I think our xmas tree looks awesome in our living room!
Turkey, eggnog, chocolates, ornaments, lights, tinsel, mistletoe, I love it all!
It was an important part of my "worldly" wifes childhood and culture so thats another reason we keep it as a tradition in our marriage. In addition, since I was deprived of this during my childhood, its yet another way for me to shove my "apostacy" in the face of the borg.
I never celebrated it before I became a dub, and I don't intend to celebrate now that I'm out. In my job, we only have Christmas and Boxing Day off, so I just spent the day chillin out.
