Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the apology, but it wasn't that necessary. We get the confusion so often. It's nice to be able to set the record straight.
It doesn't help when the David Koresh's of the world get linked to SDAs in news accounts. ;-). I always felt sorry for the Jehovah's Witness kids in the school where I worked at one time. Their parents always picked them up before any of the class parties. I never read anything about dourness or lack of celebration in the Bible... so that never did make any sense to me.
Well, I did too. Now that I am a little older I understand where some of their objections stem from. They don't celebrate Christmas or Easter because they are not in the Bible and have more to do with paganism than Yeshua.
They don't celebrate birthdays because that concept isn't really biblical either. The only birthday celebration recorded in the Bible is the party for Herod Antipas and we know where that went. (Matthew 14:6-12)
I never read anything about dourness or lack of celebration in the Bible... so that never did make any sense to me.
Christians need to understand that a lot of the things they do aren't really biblical. Birthdays parties, Christmas, Easter have more to do with paganism than the true religion of the Bible.
I think the only reason that the JW religion is so "dour" as you put it is that they don't celebrate G-d's true holy days as spelt out in the Torah. If Christians and JW would celebrate those, they would have more fun, not less fun.