The Years Without Santa Claus

Today as Ms. Laura and I finished up our Christmas shopping it made me think of some of the things I missed out on as a child because of my Mother's religious beliefs. Here are just a few:

1) As a small child I never got to imagine what it would be like if there really was a Santa Claus. I was always told that it was "lies" that were told to young kids and that Santa Claus did not and never did exist and if he did he was probably was a dirty old man.

2) I was never taught the real meaning of Christmas. Jehovah's Witnesses do believe in Jesus, but do not believe he was born on December 25. They feel Christmas is too commercialized and that it is more trouble then fun. Even though they tried to teach me this, I still felt that Christmas was a special time of the year and things happened during this time that didn't at other times of the year.

3) I never got to write a letter to Santa Claus.

4) As a child, I never had a Christmas tree, or lights in my house.

5) When our school would have Christmas parties or programs, I had to leave school early. All the kids always wondered about this and it was hard explaining to them when I didn't understand myself. (this also occured on Halloween and Valentine's Day)

I am one of the fortunate ones. There are many JW's that will never experience what Christmas is all about. Growing up I did have a glimpse as to what Christmas was all about. See, my Mom is a JW, but my father is not. They married (and are still married today) while my Mom was taking a "break" from being a JW. When they had my brother, she decided to go back to being a good JW. So, growing up, my Dad's parents always gave us Christmas gifts and my Father also would give us a few gifts. Talk about confusing. Here I was suppose to not be celebrating Christmas, but I am handed several gifts. There were times when I didn't know whether to say "thank you", or "no thank you". And let me explain my Father's idea of gifts. My Father is a lawyer and never has had the ability to look at things through a child's eyes. I would recieve from him things such as: car wash coupons, a 500 page book about wild birds, a free calender given out by the bank and flashlights with the batteries. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate those gifts, but when you are a child it's like getting only socks and underwear. And I think I received that a few times from him as well.

But the last two years have been different. I wrote out a list to Santa (aka Laura) and recieved most of what was on that list. Infact, this year I know that I am getting Oprah's Greatest Moments. Yippee. Oh, wait, I am not suppose to know. (see Laura's blog to see how angry she is at me for finding that out.)

One last thing.......15 days and counting.