The year 2013, our first year of freedom, was a huge relief that also came with many changes and new challenges - challenges, in the real sense of the word: natural obstacles which must be dealt with and overcome, causing growth.
Now a free adult for the first time in my life, I had the weight of responsibility for making a home for my family.
The kids went to school for the first time in their lives. At least the four youngest did. (Vicky had escaped as soon as she was eighteen, completed her own education, then rejoined us after the rest of us escaped.)
We found a wonderful alternative school that was a great environment for both them and me-- a homeschool co-op that had grown up; still legally "homeschooling" but in a public school building with teachers paid by the state. Parents and younger siblings hung around the facility all day, making an environment where elders and babies outnumbered the pupils. It was more like home. More like a village. Not much nonsense can go on with a mother always watching. It might not be your mother but it's still a mother.
Christmas rolled around.
I do know better than Christmas. Christmas was big in my family when I was a child, but when I was ten or so, the old booklet "Is Christmas Christian?" landed on our table and my parents and I read it. I was old enough to understand. That is an unholy day based on pagan customs and must go.
I certainly missed it when it was gone. That was when we moved to the bookdocks, and Christmas was wrapped up in my fond memories as "the golden days when we were normal". In fact I missed it so much, that I have a Christmas tree as one of my early conscious sins. I was maybe twelve. We'd moved down to that place in Cali way out in the mountains, and I was so homesick for everything and Christmas, that I went out in the woods with some sparkly bits of garland and a few homemade ornaments, and decorated a little tree.
It didn't feel good. "You're doing wrong right now and you know it."
Ugh.
When I was first married, ignoring Christmas wasn't an issue. Ed didn't care. It's usually the women who pursue that (un)holyday anyway. Later on, when the kids grew old enough to ask Daddy, "Why can't we do Christmas like everybody else?" he challenged me to show him in the Bible where it says we can't do Christmas. After all, he said, "It's not like we're worshipping the tree!"
I couldn't prove it. Nowdays I'd be able to, but I couldn't then. So I was given some money and told to make Christmas.
I grumbled to the kids, "Christmas is stupid, but Daddy's in charge, and he says we're going to," and then I decked the halls.
I also added that, "Our pagan ancestors definitely had a point with the twinkly lights. It does cheer up the bleak midwinter!"
Over the years I got so used to it that I had five boxes of decorations, a whole stack of Christmas CDs, Christmas cookie cutters, everything. The kids got used to my once-yearly conscience-soothing rant. Christmas became an ordinary part of our lives.
When they were older I refused to be part of it. I'd tell them if they want Christmas, go to the attic and get busy. The first time I pulled that one, I was hoping they'd make a mess of it, but those big girls were artistic and turned the house into winter wonderland far more beautiful than I had ever done it.
When we left in 2013 I had too many other things to think about. Christmas came around and I didn't question it, only panicked. I added it to one of the many, many things I need to worry about and it felt impossible. How am I going to do this? WHERE am I going to get any gifts?
At that point the divorce wasn't even filed. Ed was giving us some money at his discretion, never the full amount he had agreed to, but enough that I could scrape by if I was frugal.
By the week before Christmas I had come up with a tree, and I had bought and wrapped one gift. I had looked at ideas for handmade gifts but hadn't started working on any. At least I baked some cookies. Besides that it was only despair. The kids kept on assuring me that they don't mind-- "It doesn't matter, Mom! It's okay if there aren't any gifts!" If you're a parent, you'll understand that that makes it feel worse, not better.
And then a miracle happened.
I was brought to a back room at school and told that the local parents' group had heard about us, knew that we had come from 22 years of abuse and were now doing our best on very little funds, and had decided to adopt us for Christmas. Then they showed me a pile of presents that made my jaw drop. They filled up the back of my minivan twice. I had to make two trips. The first load was loads and loads of wrapped presents in big containers that were also gifts, such as a cool fabric-lined wicker laundry hamper. The next day was another load with some big items including a brand new Cuisinart food processor and a Crock Pot for me, and a bunch of useful housekeeping stuff from Costco.
Overwhelmed? Yes, I cried. I cried the next day.
The tree was buried behind gifts and the gifts stacked the table.
When Vicky saw the load she said, "Do they know about me?!"
No, they didn't. They only knew about the four youngers, but that didn't matter. They hadn't tagged the gifts, so on Christmas morning everybody just piled in and started opening at random, then had a great time swapping and sharing things around per taste. For instance, one gift was a cool coffee set with a mug and accessories, maybe intended for me, but Vicky was the only one of us who liked coffee.
I have to say it was a lesson in how to gift, something I've never been much good at anyway. I seem to define gifts too narrowly and don't visualize "would make a great gift" about useful things that really make great gifts. There were colorful backpacks, pretty fleece blankets, journals with decorative covers, stationery, umbrellas. They also gave us a used Wii in great condition along with a pile of games and accessories. When the orgy of unwrapping was over, the kids played Mario together while I sorted out all that paper, feeling warm and loved by the kindness of strangers.
I've wanted to post about this ever since, but couldn't find the pictures. Now that I've found them they're quite disappointing. Only some poor phone snapshots, and not a single image of that mass of gifts.
Here's one of the last tree I ever bought:
And Vicky's enthusiasm helping us make a new home.
I love the sight of that plain little apartment in the background. What a change it was to be in a safe place where the door is under my control. Our apartment was a haven where nobody is welcome except nice people.
There's just a tiny fraction of the gifts.
I found the thank you drawing that Karen made for our benefactors! It didn't scan very well. Here's a scan and one with the contrast increased a bit.
Honestly I'm glad it didn't even cross my mind to object that year. What was a wonderful day, enjoyed by all of us. Best Christmas ever! Not ruined by any awareness of conscience. Humans are frail critters. I didn't even think about it afterwards.
In December 2014 a better miracle happened. God sent someone to speak to me at the right moment and bring the topic to mind-- right before I bought a tree. I got no farther than to think, "Well, I don't suppose lightning's going to strike in the same place twice" (nope) when I was relieved of Christmas.
I met someone who observed the Sabbath on the seventh day per the commandment, and the actually holy days which are what Jehovah worship indicates. I argued about that, but at least I was reminded about Christmas.
Whoops. Adam isn't around any more to take the blame. It's up to me what we will or will not celebrate. As soon as I thought of it, the conclusion was immediate, although I flopped around with some regrets just like I had years ago as a child. Christmas is bright and twinkly and smells nice, but it must go.
I felt some trepidation. Did I expect a crying fit when I told the kids that Christmas is cancelled? They barely shrugged. Yes, they remembered the lectures.
Nowadays I would point to Deut 12:30, "Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise."
December 25th isn't Jesus' birthday, but is the birthdate of some other legends and idols who don't need to be named. A well-travelled friend of mine once opined that, "Nobody can grow to adulthood in America without realizing where Christmas comes from." But honestly, I know of grown-up women who really think that that's Jesus' birthday.
In case you're curious, I think the most fun, illustrated, bold and shocking information is in some videos shared with me very recently by my lovely new husband (as of 2019!)
He came across them by chance on Youtube. There's a part 2 and there's one about Easter. Viewer discretion! But those nasty legends really are where this nonsense comes from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zSPY-wu2pw
The second miracle was me changing my opinion to something I had been set against. I needed not only to discard the unacceptable "Christmas" but to take up the real holy days instead. That was a step I had long been convinced was "Judaizing" and wouldn't examine. I had met Christians who followed Jehovah's genuine religious calendar, but I brushed them aside. The most recent conversation was no exception. I didn't investigate, only argued, briefly and proudly, and then dismissed the subject from my mind. I knew better than Christmas, but nowadays we go to church on Sunday! "The Lord's Day" and proud of it!
One fine Saturday morning, shortly after cancelling Christmas, I woke up with the strangest feeling. It was earlier than five am, I felt suddenly alert, peaceful (miracle) and wide awake, and it seemed as if before my face there was a word, in four large letters. "REST"
I had intended to get up (much later) and then vacuum and clean the house in preparation for resting on Sunday. But instead, I jumped out of bed, feeling energy (miracle), interest, curiosity, humility (miracle)-- something amazing was happening! And suddenly everything was okay!
I hit the internet to do research. One of the old teachers I'd listened to long ago had published a booklet series on the ten commandments, and I looked up the 4th commandment one. It begins by saying that he's not going to get involved in the controversy of which day and time is the correct sabbath, only going to instruct us in how to observe the day that we choose for ourselves. Suddenly that sounded like the most cowardly thing I'd ever heard of. "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy" is one of the big ten. It gets no more foundational than that. How can we remember it, if we don't know which one it is?
It's pretty obvious which day is the seventh day of the week, come to think about it. A quick study points out how many different languages call the seventh days of the week some variant of "Sabado". Jesus was the son of God, he certainly knew which day was the right one, and he had never argued with the Pharisees about which day it was, only, like my former teacher's booklet, taught what things should be done on that day. The Romans' days of the week are recent history and traceable. Wikipedia explains that the calendar's been adjusted a few times, but only the numerical dates. The seven days of the week have never been messed with.
Okay. That same booklet said that one of the things you must do on the sabbath is assemble. So I googled, "sabbath church" thinking I would have to fall back on the SDA, like my sabbath-keeping mother, but lo and behold, there was the real Church of God. Their meeting place was four miles away from me and services started in one hour. Just enough time to get dressed. "Okay, God, I guess I'm going to church."
How funny it was to wander in there! Terra incognita, as foreign as going to another country, and then how strange to discover that that other country was my real home. Afterwards I called up my mother and admitted what I'd just done, and that she had been right all along (gigantic miracle, haha).
When I was a teenager, one of the home churches we had attended met on Saturday. I only noticed that as an anomaly and it made no impression. I was out in the shop with the men, eschewing female company as usual, and they talked politics, but my mother had been in the kitchen and had absorbed the sabbath.
Ed had decided that Sunday was the correct day and I had resisted much less than Christmas. I had barely noticed, and later, forgot about it entirely. I had had to go do archaeology to even remember for sure that that group met on Saturdays.
The calendar of days by which people schedule their lives shows which system they are loyal to. It's kinda like we can tell which side you're on by whether you observe the 4th of July or Cinco de Mayo. Do you keep the day that God said is holy from the time of creation and commanded us to "remember"? Or allow human leaders to appoint a different one?
"Constantine I decreed that Sunday will be observed as the Roman day of rest: 'On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.'" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Day
So vacuuming was cancelled and I followed God in a new direction because he told me to. Does that sound strange? "God told me to." Who talks like that? If I'd heard people say that, I'd usually scoff. I'd call it their strong imagination, at best, or exaggerating for effect, or at worst, faking it for purposes of their own. God doesn't talk to people any more.
Did I really not think that God talks to people? And if I didn't, then, did I even believe in such a thing as God?
