#jwhaha

I'm so embarrassed I reached out omg😭

I've thought a lot about the varied reactions that I've seen jw's have toward Christmas. On the far end of the scale, there are people like my jehovah-mom. When she talks about Christmas and the Christmas season, she uses words like "satanic" and "disgusting" and "wicked." When she hears Christmas music playing in the grocery store, she compares it to "smelling filthy cigarette smoke." To hear my mom's reaction to Christmas, you would think it was a worldwide orgy filled with pure human hedonism. But that's just my mom. She pretty much hates everything outside of the kingdom hall doors equally. On the opposite end of the scale, I've heard of jw's who want to emulate Christmas in any way they can get away with.  In the middle, between the two extremes, you sometimes end up with strange confluences of emotional reactions to Christmas among jw's. Perfect example of that: in December of 2010, my last year as a jw, I was talking to a jw couple who are my age. They have a son who was around 8 at the time. The mom was telling me this story (which she thought was just soooo cute and endearing) about driving home from the midweek meeting with their son. It was dark, of course, and a lot of the houses they were passing had Christmas lights up. In the back seat, their son suddenly asked: "Mommy, I know that jehovah hates Christmas, but... do you think it's okay with him if I just think the lights look pretty?" The mom said that she and her husband had to have a quick, hushed discussion in the front seat about how to answer, and then she told him: "As long as we remember that jehovah hates what they stand for, it's okay to think that the lights themselves are pretty." Is it okay with jehovah if I just think the lights look pretty? As the mom was telling me this story, she and her husband had smiles on their faces... you could tell that they thought the question was soooooooo cute and endearing, and they were soooo proud of their little boy for thinking of how to please jehovah. Little did they know that at that point in my life I had already determined that I was getting my children out of the cult, starting at that next new year's day. Little did they know that hearing their story gave me a 64-ounce Super Big Gulp sized dose of confirmation and reinforcement that I was doing the right thing and saving my children from a very troublesome life. Is it okay with jehovah if I just think the lights look pretty? That story has stuck with me for 4 years now. To me, it sums up the cognitive dissonance experienced by jehovah's witnesses, starting as soon as they are old enough to start having logical thoughts. Sadly for this little guy, who is 12 now, his parents are making sure that they throw water on any burning embers of curiosity he ever has about the big, bright world that lies outside of the kingdom hall doors. I hope that in just a few more years, he still has enough curiosity left to lead him to do his research and get the hell away from that cult.