[Cal]

When I was in the LCM, like a good little trained monkey I didn't celebrate Christmas. As far as I can tell it had zero positive effect. In fact I would say the effect was negative. Family just looked at me as if I was a weird snob. Which I was.

I told my parents not to give me gifts, as if that would make me more "pure." All it did was make them sad. I remember one year my parents didn't wrap any gifts for me, but they wanted me give me something so they bought me some gifts and gave them to me in a bag. There were some sports equipment and other things. It was a gift of love and maybe a message to get out and do something other than be church boy.

Since at the time Witness Lee preached against "playing the spoooorts," a brother and I decided the best thing would be to take all the stuff back to the store and get the money for it. So we did. I remember the woman who worked at the store looking at me with disgust and saying, "Next time ask for cash." I felt like a jerk. But the feeling was short-lived, and we probably took the money and went out to eat and talked about how much better we were than all the idiots that celebrated Christmas.

Thinking about that now just makes me feel ashamed and embarrassed. It actually makes me mad how the LCM turned us into freaks. That's one reason I post here.