I’m with Lazz, though I don’t have a family or a boyfriend, so I have to close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears and go “la la la la la I can’t hear you!” till the whole annoying damn thing goes away.
I hate Christmas and Easter and Hannukah and Ramadan and Yom Kippur and the whole lot of 'em. Thanksgiving I used to be able to tolerate, but no more. New Year’s depresses me, as each year gets worse and worse.
Arbor Day. That’s about the only holiday that doesn’t make me projectile-vomit.
If there’s ever an Arbor Day ad campaign or an Arbor Day Hallmark card, this should be the slogan.
This agnostic does, and thinks it’s a good time. Family, friends, charity, love, what’s not to like? Well, now that I think about it, I’d qualify that last statement by saying Christmas would be just about perfect if it weren’t for some of those goddamn Christians.
Band name.
Raised in a strongly non-Christian household (and for the purposes of the holidays, an atheist) and we did the tree, lights, gifts, and nonreligious cards. It is just a nice time to get into the holiday spirit and be together. Chrismas used to be my favorite holiday, in a sense of it having its own look/feel and being part of American culture, but since I was 21 that honor has gone to New Year’s. 
Easter is good because it means Cadbury creme eggs, that’s it. Wish they made those year round. (FTR, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.)
Oiche Chiuin by Enya, and there’s also a rock song from the '50s or early '60s that goes “Feliz Navidad/I wanna wish you a merry xmas” that I like. It’s funny I don’t know Silent Night in English but I know it in Gaelic.
I consider myself an agnostic, and you’ll take my tree, ornaments, carols, and reindeer antler headbands over my dead body (and even then, you’d probably have to wrestle them away from my reanimated corpse.)
Most of my family is at least nominally Christian, and my grandma and her husband are quite devout. Bob always reads the relevant Bible passages to the assembled family on Christmas Eve, after dinner and before we do presents. It’s a wonderful moment–it’s a lovely story even if I don’t believe it, and it just feels good to be with that whole side of the family and sharing something that’s really important to them in an interlude of seriousness and reflection in the sea of laughter. It comforts me and sustains my soul.
Yes, we get together the rest of the year, when we can, but we’ve become so far-flung that it’s hard to get everyone in one place at one time. I’d love to be able to have these sorts of gatherings all year-round, but since we can’t, I’m willing to take what I can get and be grateful for it. Same for people not seeming to have enough love, generosity and joy to last the whole year–I’ll take one month of giving over no months of giving and say thank you.
I wonder if this resembles my friends’ experience that I recounted once on the boards (but seems to be lost from the search engine)?
About 15 years ago, my mates Ian and Paul left the pub on Christmas Eve at about 11.30pm, having had several pints too many, and were on their way home, when they noticed people filing into the church. They decided to tag along, and ended up sitting in a pew. They were both from completely non-religious families, and neither of them had ever been to a church before. They watched what everyone else was doing in terms of standing up, sitting down, or kneeling, and they joined in with the carols with some gusto.
Then came the communion. They followed everyone else up to the altar, and kneeled down to receive the host. Ian knew from religion classes at school that communion was something to do with bread and wine, so when he received the little disc of wafer as the host, he had no idea what it was. In his drunken logic, he assumed it was some kind of token, so he stood up and started stumbling around the altar, looking for the machine to put it into to get his bread. :smack:
Actually, in June it’s too damn hot to spend the day in the house baking, and in December there is time off from work and school that makes it easier to go visiting. ::shrug::
My dad’s a raging atheist and my family has always celebrated and enjoyed a secular Christmas. My sister is also a staunch atheist and celebrates Christmas with her kids. My brother, the Christian, has the least Christmas spirit of anybody in the family and I think it’s kind of a bummer for his kids. And me, I like Christmas a lot but I like it best with no family around (and I am not an atheist).
Not nearly as exciting. It all started when I went to church with my mom one Sunday, at her pleading.
Mom then proceded to throw a sotto voce hissy fit during the Communion processional when I told her I wasn’t going to take Communion. We went back and forth for a while (as the usher advanced ominiously toward our pew) until it became clear that she was about to blow a blood vessel.
I caved, to my eternal shame.
Afterwards I told her that if I was going to get ambushed and pressured into participating hypocritcally in ceremonies that I didn’t believe in, I would not be going to church with her in the future. It was a long time before she asked me to go to services with her again. When she did, I asked her if she expected me to participate in the service, all poised for another blowout, but she said that she felt bad about what happened that time, and she would be grateful if I would just come with her and sit quietly. I notice that she has never invited me to a Communion service, though. 
I have gone to Communion services with Grandma, and despite Mom’s fears, the congregation was not scandalized, the pastor has not come calling, church ladies have not shunned us, and the Lutheran Mafia has not been mobilized.
What? No BBQ in Texas?
Huh? BBQ cookies? I don’t understand.
Christmas tradition far transcends it’s origins. People need a celebration at the shortest day of the year.
Besides, it’s my B-day.
Of course!
It’s the best holiday of the year (in fact it’s the only one for me).
They way I see it is, as an athiest I have no right to celebrate Easter, so I don’t (I of course still accept the 2 days off work I get though).
Christmas, on the other hand, was never the christians’ in the first place so I’ll be damned (possibly literally) if I’m letting them get away with making it religious.
I see it as a time to get together with family and friends and all have a good time, exchange gifts to show you care etc etc. I’m not letting a little thing like atheism stop me from doing that.
I’m an atheist and I love Christmas. Secular Christmas, gift exchange Christmas, getting together with family and friends Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life Christmas and Charlie Brown Christmas, but not religious Christmas. I had enough of that growing up catholic.
You know how when you’re a kid the year seems so long and Christmas is soooo far away, right? Being an altar boy and watching the Advent candles light up…one…by…one…makes the holiday seem even further away.
Of course now, at age 40 I can’t believe it’s already December again! What the hell happened to summer, anyway?
Actually, that brings up a very important part of how come the Winter Festival comes to be specially associated with generosity and sharing and charity: in the temperate region (and it’s in that region of Eurasia where Christianity takes its modern form), the Solstice comes at the beginning of winter, when you are about to start a few months of conditions not very kind to those in bad shape (physically or economically). So the festivities did evolve to incorporate such gestures of kindness.
Atheist. I do not “celebrate” christmas, I endure it. I will give (gifts, money, food, whatever) when and because I feel like it, not because some schmuck on TV/radio/at work/wherever tells me I must. I quite like the socializing (with people I like to socialize with, but don’t see all that often), but people can socialize year-round.
Ditto for my birthday - I love to give other people birthday presents but would just as soon mine were forgotten.
I do, I do. My mother was a Christmas nut (my father not so much), and my sister and I inherited that from her. My sister is actually a Christmas nazi, but that’s another story.
It’s a love-hate thing though; I think it is for most people, though what they love and what they hate may differ. For me:
Love
Christmas trees
Christmas carols
All that food
All that drink
Days off
Visiting
Some of the old movies
Snow (there isn’t any in Houston, but with the tree up I can pretend)
Hate[/]
Secular Christmas music
Parking
Shopping (though sometimes I get into it)
Santa shoehorned into every commercial
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” and all the rest of that “true meaning” crap
Probably the worst thing about Christmas is the expectation that it should somehow be “perfect,” which it never can be. Lots of people get all upset if their impossible (and fuzzy) expectations aren’t met. Screw that. Have another pint of Christmas ale.
I’m atheist and I don’t celebrate Christmas, but it’s not for religious reasons that I abstain. I’m just sick of all the shopping hype, the expectations around gift exchange, the endless horrid Christmas music, etc. Just about the only Christmas music I still like is religious (“Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel”) or warped (Gary Hoey peforming “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”). I far prefer Thanksgiving with its emphasis on gathering with loved ones and feasting. That part of Christmas I could still groove on, but the rest of the baggage has pretty much ruined it for me. My friends and family all still like it, which is fine. Knock yourself out – just don’t object when I say “none for me, thanks.”