and that makes the latter issue also about a rejection, on some level, since Dad's job is to lead people to Christ, and apparently he couldn't succeed at that with us kids.

One of the harder points for me is that I'm the first person my Dad ever baptized (when I was an infant). That's incredibly special and important to me, or was, and in some ways I'm sad that it no longer has infused in it a deeper spiritual meaning. In fact, that's part of why I have trouble doing a purely secular holiday celebration for holidays that used to be intense religious experiences for me. Not having been raised with those as secular experiences, it feels totally weird to me.