Jehovah's Witnesses

So one of my good friends is, or rather was a Jehovah's Witness. As a child he attended church  multiple times a week, you are spreading the word of God constantly. (Like Mormons). He told me he knows the Bible pretty well, even though now, he is not active in the religion. He, told me that growing up, they never celebrated holidays, this including Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, Valentines day.. etc. As someone who has grown up celebrating each of these holidays, and never missing a big meal, I found all of this information hard to grasp. And of course, since I had no prior knowledge of him being a Jehovah's witness, I had invited him to join my family and I for Thanksgiving... woops...I asked him, "So what happens if I want to throw you a big birthday party, or give you a Christmas gift?" He looked at me intensely and replied, "Well, you hope that the people closest to you would respect and understand, that I or (we) cannot accept gifts...It is nothing personal, but that is just how we were raised.. didn't make us very popular at sleepover birthday parties..." This concept of not celebrating holidays still blows my mind. but then again, I can see where he is coming from as well.. we don't need these big holidays to celebrate God or giving thanks, we can do these things on a daily basis if we so choose. "We don't need a reason to give gifts to people on specific days, if you want to get someone a gift, get them a gift!"- This I agree with 100%. This talk with him was an intriguing one, it opened a lot of doors for me, and made me curious about the unknown. Until then, at least to my knowledge, I had never met a Jehovah's Witness. Learn something new everyday...