Growing up without Christmas

Love of celebration as a reclamation of self

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As a young child, I loved Christmas.

I loved the colourful trees in living rooms, the carols playing in shops, the foil wrapped chocolates my friends’ parents would offer round at playdates, the songs we sang during school assemblies. I especially loved the decorated shop windows after dark. One December we visited family in Paris and my parents took me to the Galeries Lafayette where my uncle was working in a record store. The enormous Christmas tree, the beautifully styled window displays, the smell of perfume, the glittering lights - all of it mesmerised me. It was magical, a portal, perhaps, into another world where all these things were meant for me.

Because in the real world, they were not.

That’s because I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. You know who I mean. Jehovah’s Witnesses are the people who knock on your door wanting to talk about the troubles of the world, the neatly dressed ladies who stand next to stations with a stand full of magazines proclaiming that there is reason for hope!

Until the age of eleven or twelve perhaps, my weeks were dominated by the religion: twice-weekly meetings at the Kingdom Hall held on Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings, and weekly bible study on a Tuesday which was held in an old lady’s flat close to our house (I never wanted to go, but I did appreciate the occasional biscuits). There were no separate Sunday-school style classes for children. Everyone was required to attend regardless of age, and follow along with the talks and books which promised us that the end of the world was coming, but that we could be saved - if we tried hard enough, if we were good enough, if we loved God enough - and enjoy the blissful peace of eternal life in a paradise on earth.

Part of loving God was rejecting ‘worldly things’. We did not celebrate birthdays, because this would displease him (and God was very much a him). Birthday celebrations were believed to have pagan roots, a big no-no for true believers.

We were taught to reject blood transfusions. I still remember carrying around a tiny cardboard card which bore printed instructions that I should not be given blood in case of emergency, simultaneously proud that I was considered mature enough to carry this important medical document and terrified because what if I needed blood and died? We were not allowed to eat black pudding for similar reasons, which I don’t remember being a hardship.

We did not celebrate Easter or buy chocolate eggs (again, pagan), though we did attend a memorial service around the same time where we solemnly passed wine and crackers up and down the aisles whilst thinking about Jesus’ death.

And we absolutely did not celebrate Christmas. Because - you guessed it - it was pagan. There is truth to this. Celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December is believed to be linked to winter solstice celebrations which predate the birth of Jesus, and for thousands of years people have gathered to mark the longest night with feasting and fire.

But pagan or otherwise, it didn’t make me stop wanting Christmas for myself. I didn’t want to miss out on the nativity play at primary school, sitting outside the headteacher’s office instead of singing and laughing in the hall with my friends. I didn’t care that I wasn’t allowed. I wanted in.

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