When they ask "So Dad, if you’re an atheist, and you don’t believe in God, why do we exchange gifts on the birthday of Christ? As a lifelong atheist and new father, I am struggling to answer this question without being hippocritical.
For the same reason I don’t go to work on Saturdays or Sundays: not because I’m religious, but because it’s a cultural norm that I’m quite happy to follow. Some people want to keep the sabbath day holy, some people work on the weekends, most people stay home because that’s how we’ve organized our week, as a society. None of those are right or wrong, just different.
I celebrate Halloween, but that doesn’t mean I believe in “placating demons to ensure a bountiful harvest”, as The Onion put it. Celebrating a holiday doesn’t commit me to any particular beliefs; merriment and tradition are reason enough for me.
When I first got married, I didn’t want to celebrate xmas. I had a history, as a single person, of absolutely ignoring it, to the extent possible. I hate xmas. My husband convinced me it was a cultural thing, we should absolutely have a tree, our kids should write letters to Santa, etc., etc.
So okay, no problem. We did that.
Then he became a Messianic…something. Believer, I guess. Suddenly xmas was a no-no and chanukah was the thing. I said, no way, Joe, it’s now a family tradition that goes along with a cultural tradition.
And so that’s how it is. Jesus is not the reason for the season. I’ve heard his actual birthday was in March, and I’ve heard it was in August, if he even existed. But we’re getting a tree.
If he wants to give it up when our last kid is out of the house, that will be fine. I would prefer to spend the holiday on a beach somewhere, preferably in a country where xmas is not celebrated (but not one where women have to be covered up).
(Actually most of the Messianics also have decorated trees.)
Was your heart three sizes too small? 
I don’t have kids, but my parents are both atheist/agnostic (father is Jewish, mother’s family were Jehovah’s Witnesses) and we celebrate both Christmas *and *Channukah. They’re just fun family gatherings with presents, food, and days off from work/school. 
It helps that Christmas here is still called jul, which is to say no attempt is made to hide its pre-Christian roots. (I had a Christian American friend who kept asking me “what Christians call it” and wouldn’t believe me that they also say jul until I showed her the newsletter from our local church :rolleyes: )
We tell the kids that we are celebrating a holiday that is about heritage, both Christian and Pagan. We’re celebrating centuries of tradition, and we don’t have to share the beliefs of those traditions in order to honor them.
I’d just tell them that we are celebrating the Winter Solstice, like people were doing for thousands of years before Jesus was ever dreamed up.
“Atheists who celebrate Christmas”? What the…? What has atheism got to do with any of it?
“Christmas is a evening for having fun and giving gifts before the important holiday.”
Coming from a reasonably not religious family, as children we got presents at Christmas, no mention of Jesus or God nessesary, i think its deep enough in western culture now that it doesn’t require religion to be fun.
I usually call it “traditional winter holiday” and half the time the cards I give people say “MFC” - merry fuckin’ christmas.
The kids know it’s supposed to be about Jesus because it’s pretty much impossible to live in the USA and not know it’s supposed to be about Jesus (Chick tracts nonwithstanding). They also know that Grandma (with whom we live) is a believer and that Mommy is not. Usually they don’t give a rat’s ass, because they’re in it for the time off from school and the presents, just like 95% of the rest of American kids. (I understand that many children are also overcome with religious whatever, but I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that they care more about the presents and the time off from school than they do about the Birth of their Savior.)
I call it Winterval.
Down in the deep midwinter everyone looked through their stores of food, cooked up what was going rotten - hence the Christmas cake with lots of alcohol, and redistributed what was good so all would have enough for the rest of the winter. Hence the giving of gifts, and hence boxing day - boxing up the unneeded gifts and redistributing them.
Christmas is the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year around that time - the celebration of the evergreen trees. Like many christian festivals it’s just been dropped on top of older rituals.
We don’t have Boxing Day here, St. Stephen’s Day instead.
My thoughts exactly.
I told my kids essentially that – a long time ago people would see the darkness closing in and then one day the sun actually rose a little earlier or set a little later. Three days later, yes, it’s still progressing. Yippeee! Time for a party! Later on, people promoting a different religion were able to persuade them not to worship nature gods, but nobody wanted to give up the party, so the new religion said, fine, but let’s just say it’s Jesus’s birthday.
BTW, there is not only no evidence that JC was born in December, if one believes the shepherds were watching flocks out in the fields at night, it was almost certainly spring or summer.
Buddhist chiming in here.
We use the theory that Jesus was a Boddhisatva, so celebrating his birthday is fair game for us. Plus it’s a cultural thing.
“Kids, 2000 years ago Santa Claus was born in Bethlehem”. Not sure if the OP has kids, but when presents are involved, they don’t ask a lot of philosophical questions.
As we all know, Christmas is that mystical time of year when the ghost of Jesus rises from the grave to feed on the flesh of the living. So we all sing Christmas carols to lull him back to sleep.
There is no reason to get into religious talks with a child. Just go along,buy presents and enjoy the time off work.