There is a great post on All About Armstrongism today about the Church of God's greatest LIE that was fostered off on tens of thousands of gullible members are pure truth.
The Church for generations taught the “evils of Christmas” to the Church, condemning it with fervor and blasting out about how “Satanic” the day was,, it’s origins, “Saturnalia”, and of course, teaching how it was lying to their children about Santa Clause.
Truth is, they really needed to shut up about it – they were involved in their own lying. Even Herbert Armstrong said they got “carried away”. And the subject to bring that point home is 1975.
1975 is one of Armstrongism’s biggest embarrassments. And biggest fears. With members fearing losing 1/3 of “their friends” that they knew at that time (which was stated with certainty in the book) to world disasters on Armageddon proportions, they were scared. Scared stiff. Some to the point where they had everything packed and ready to go. Children were told that they would have to leave “at any time”. Some children were so scared of this, they were literally traumatized at that time – mostly by the fearfulness and panic of some very zealous parents who listened – and believed wholeheartedly – to the patently false speculations of Herbert Armstrong, who, according to an article in “Tomorrow’s World” magazine published by the Church, “regretted it deeply”, regarding the church’s – as he called it “appearance” or “coming close to” setting dates.
Check out the entire article here: "Let's Get Real"