Your current thoughts regarding the holidays?

HereIgo

Due to the holidays fast approaching, I was curious about your thoughts and plans for the holidays. I have been celebrating them now for the past couple of years and ill be honest it still feels weird to celebrate, mainly Christmas and Halloween. Thanksgiving seems normal because growing up as a JW we always celebrated it anyway (well the day after, but that's another thread) Anyway, has it become the norm for you to celebrate now or are you used to not celebrating?

DesirousOfChange

We don't celebrate Christmas. Frankly I just do not miss it. I don't think I missed it as a kid. I still had everything that every other kid !) and I truly got gifts all year long. I don't miss the lights. I don't miss decorating the tree.

I think Christmas is much to commercialized and there is too much emphasis on that aspect of it. I know of "worldly" people who went deeply into debt every year for Christmas and were paying it off for the next 12 months, just to do it all over again.

I think if one has the holidays off of work or school, it is a great opportunity to visit with family and friends, even without all the gift-giving. It may be the only opportunity that everyone has to be off from work and school and be together, and I certainly have no problem doing so. . . . Doc

Room 215

Silly but fun (Halloween); welcome opportunity to reaffirm family ties (Thanksgiving); over-commercialized but still innocuous respite from the usual work routine (Christmas).

mrquik

I married a "worldly woman" whose family celebrates everything big time. I have no problem with any holiday after realizing the flawed thinking I was indoctrinated with. As a witness, my mother always celebrated Thanksgiving & even as an elder, I would take my family out for Thanksgiving. I still, though, have some reluctance to sing "Happy Birthday" & I can't wrap a present for crap...

pale.emperor

This will be my first xmas. I do feel a little wierd about celebrating it. But if im gonna do Dec 25th im gonna do it properly. Im celebrating Yule instead. No baby Jesus, no "3 wise men", just some Germanic Paganism with my friends and little girl.

I think Christmas is much to commercialized and there is too much emphasis on that aspect of it. I know of "worldly" people who went deeply into debt every year for Christmas and were paying it off for the next 12 months, just to do it all over again.

I know what you mean, i actually never missed it but i loved xmas time because people seemed excited and there were great bargains the week after xmas. I wont be going silly and buying people crap just for the hell of it.

DesirousOfChange

but i loved xmas time because people seemed excited and there were great bargains the week after xmas.

I think just as many people seem crabby and stressed (like the ones that crash through the doors of the shopping mall on Black Friday and trample others or the ones who fight for the "hottest" toy of the season).

But I agree that the after Christmas sales were what the women in my family lived for when I was a kid. Plus one of my (worldly) aunts baked 100s of cookies of a dozen different varieties every Xmas season!!

punkofnice

I have no childhood memories of any of the usual 'religious type' holidays...if you get what I mean.

They are all meaningless to me.

schnell

My thoughts on the holidays changed when I looked at Mother's Day in the USA and realized it isn't anything like what this cult claims it to be. It's just a Hallmark holiday. The lady who started it in the USA just wanted you to spend it with your mother and outright opposed its commercialization.

One flaw in the argument brings all the others to light.

Giordano

My mother the uber JW wanted to spend the holidays with my family because she had extended time off from her job. So out of respect we didn't do any holiday stuff while she visited. After a while of no tree's, lights and exchange of gifts on Xmas dayitself we decided to do holiday trips and visit Mom after the celebrations.

So over the years we went to places where towns and cities did it up right. We visited Santa Fe and Taos New Mexico. Gettysburg Pennsylvania. Visited non witness friends in upper New York State. Celebrated the holidays in private at hotels that were known for their holiday celebrations. Close at hand ski lodges. etc etc. Decades later we still remember those trips.

When our granddaughters came along they are 5 and 7 now........ Xmas is a big event as are their birthdays. They love handing out the gifts and if they are allowed to open some of them they present the gift as if they got for us then wait to see how we'll react.They get all red in the face and giggle into their hands.

Nobody spends a lot of money........ very simple but thoughtful gifts. The best gift of course is family love.....the unconditional kind.

The holidays are just another occasion to bond with family and provide another milestone for memories. And to remind our selves what a vast wasteland of corrupted non family beliefs the JW have.

WTWizard

I simply do the decorations and whatnot. However, no Jesus. For me, "Christ" means the sun. The Three Wise Men are no more than the three stars making up the Belt of Orion. The Star of Bethlehem is the star Sirius. And "thy perfect light" is nothing more than the Sun, which is really our perfect light.

In fact, for me, the best way to ruin Christmas would be to drag me off to church to worship that thing they call a savior. Be it Jesus or joke-hova, I do not have any respect for either. As I see it, Jesus is nothing more than the archetype of the perfect slave, and stolen from something like 18 pagan Gods that predate 2 BCE. Joke-hova doesn't deserve anything whatsoever out of me, except the most blatant disrespect I can give that monster.

Everything else is fine--save for drinking and driving (I still give a Bah! Humbug! for that.) Put up as many lights, preferably LED (they save you money and you can run more of them without popping a fuse or burning your house down) as you see fit. Christmas music is fine--I usually listen with the understanding that whenever they mention "Jesus", I replace it with "the sun". I also make sure I do not spend myself into debt, because that can lead to a dreary Christmas and a crappy New Year next year.

Your current thoughts regarding the holidays?

Share this