Scientology and Christmas: How one Hubbardite space cadet got the Santa magic back

Valerie Ross is back to help us understand what Christmas can mean to the committed Scientologist, and what it means after getting out.

Christmas always makes me a little sad. It reminds me of my family and what I squandered. But Scientology didn’t win this time.

It was just another Christmas in 1982. My parents wanted the whole family home. I was in Utah. My husband didn’t want to go.

“Make up an excuse,” he said. So, dutifully, I called home and said we wouldn’t be there. No biggie. It’s not like I’d been home for Christmas for years. Besides, my parents had come to visit in September and we had a family photo from then. Scientology had dulled my sense of family so much I really didn’t care.

But after I made the call, the phone rang again. It was my dad. He never called. My mom was the one who called. My dad was a man of few words. But when he said words, they meant something.

“I think you should figure out a way to come this year,” he said. “It’s likely the last time we will ever get together as a whole family.” That was all he had to say.

Christmas as a family growing up was a big deal. Well, not just as a family, as a village. A large group of us went looking for trees together. We even had a person from the village who brought his giant old construction truck to the mountain to haul all the trees back. In addition to decorating trees, we always built a yard full of luminarias. There were at least a hundred of them. Just lighting them at night and blowing them out in the morning took about a half hour or more.

We had a big kitchen and our house was full of people making candy, cookies, cakes, and cinnamon rolls. My dad and I had our spudnut (deep fried doughnuts made with potatoes) event every year. The village went caroling, both in town and in nearby towns, There was the big Christmas party, and everything culminated with the New Years’ Eve party. That party was so big we started decorating for it on the 26th of December.

On Christmas Day we exchanged gag gifts with the neighbors. After opening presents at home, we spent the majority of the morning going from house to house dropping off presents, staying to chat. There was always a meal or two to gorge on as well.

Even after I left for college, I sang in the Messiah choir at Christmas in 1972. I came home and serenaded my neighbors that year. By 1973, I moved to a bigger college. I got tied up in studies and didn’t take time to enjoy life. I raced home for a day or two for Christmas, but it became a duty, not something fun.

By 1975 I was in Scientology. The year 1982 would have marked the seventh year I hadn’t been home for Christmas.

Christmas was turned into a non-occasion by the time my father made that call. 1975 was my first year in Sea Org and I think we might have had a Christmas dinner. I don’t really recall because if we did, it was a rushed half-hour affair. Other than that, it was business as usual.

By 1976, Christmas afternoon consisted of playing cards with a few people I knew one afternoon. The Christmas after my daughter was born, we didn’t even shop for presents.

After that, I remember one year stopping at a 7-11 on the way to my husband’s family’s house to buy a toy for one of the kids. Christmas was not something that mattered for several years. The only time we paid attention to it was when my husband’s mother wanted to do something. And that was only if she wasn’t at Flag.

So 1982 was, in my world, an anomaly. I have two younger brothers, a younger sister, an older sister. I knew my siblings and my sisters’ children were all coming. I was also aware that my dad was on dialysis.

What surprised me was how I reacted. After my dad hung up, I sat down and sobbed. At that point in my life, it was almost unheard of for me to feel, and I certainly didn’t cry.

I’d long since locked all my emotions far away. After I finished crying, I pulled myself together. Then, for the first time in a long while, I stood up to my husband. I told him I was going home for Christmas with or without him. He said we could take the kids and go, he didn’t realize it meant that much.

I don’t remember much about Christmas in 1982, except the fact that our whole family was together in the home where we were raised. I saw all the neighbors. It was a good time.

My father lived for seventeen more months. He died Easter Sunday 1984. However, he was right, it was our family’s last Christmas together. Less than a month after I went home, my 49-year-old mother was dead. She had a stroke while awaiting gall bladder surgery. The stroke happened on my 28th birthday.

Life is short. Tomorrow isn’t promised. I was lucky enough to have that last Christmas as a family in spite of Scientology. My father’s words got through.

As for afterwards, when I escaped my marriage and Scientology, in 1984, I got a job at a huge law firm. We got two weeks’ salary as a Christmas bonus every year. This meant even without child support, I was able to give my children a good Christmas. And I started giving them the type of Christmas I remembered having growing up.

I also got to relearn the joy of giving. The law firm chose a few dozen families on the local “Sub for Santa” program.

They paid for everything. Local stores opened a couple of hours early just for this program and we would descend on them.

Those of us who wanted to volunteered to shop for, wrap, and deliver the bounty. The families got gifts, food for a Christmas dinner, a tree and decorations. An attorney always accompanied each group dressed as Santa. We witnessed people who lived in unbearable conditions whose children jumped for joy at the fact that they got presents. We saw single mothers break down and cry. We did our best not to cry until we got to the car.

I realized while doing this what I didn’t understand as a child: The baking the village did around Christmas was subsidized by my parents. We lived in a small village where most people lived hand to mouth. My father was a radiological engineer at a uranium plant. We were privileged. I didn’t even realize that growing up because my parents were humble people. They did not brag about what we had. If someone said anything about it to them, I didn’t know about it. Somehow I just believed all those baking supplies materialized out of thin air I guess.

I taught my children the joy of giving and each, in their own way, quietly gives today. These days, I still enjoy working with programs to help underprivileged families at Christmas time. I am the gift wrapper. I love wrapping presents and I volunteer to wrap the gifts. This week I got to wrap the presents for a family whose mother overdosed.

While I can’t fill all the holes left in that family, I can take to heart my parents’ lessons. I am not better than someone just because I have more.

I take the time to make each present look like the person is of worth. I may not be able to make up for those years I squandered by not sharing joy with others, but I can make the most of the time I have now by caring.

It’s only been since I started looking back that I realize that my father saying those words all those years ago was the first step in breaking the hold Scientology had on my mind. If he had been cruel or rude, he wouldn’t have gotten through. Soft kind words work. I miss him. Thanks, daddy.

As for missing my parents at Christmas? Well, the book I just read says it best:

We’d like to hear from more former Scientologists about how Christmas has changed for them over the years, from before they were in, while they were in, and after they left. Drop us a line with your thoughts.

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