I’m an atheist but oddly enough I really like this time of year. I’m still living at home so I give gifts because if I didn’t give them to others while I got them I would feel like a jerk. This will be my last Christmas living with my mom though and after I’m not living at home anymore I doubt i’ll do anything special like buy a tree or anything.
I’m a Christian.
I look exactly like Santa Claus.
I go to work on Christmas day. It’s what I know Christ wants me to do. I met the Lord on Christmas day, on my way to work. I became a Christian that day. It had nothing to do with the holiday as it is celebrated in the US.
But, I try not to piss on anyone elses holiday spirit.
I do fight an unending battle convincing folks that I don’t want a present, and if fact actively want no presents. No presents is better than some presents. Thank you very much for not giving me a present for Christmas. If it makes you feel badly, not to get a present from me, let me know, I will try to find something to give you, but please don’t give me anything back.
sigh.
And then I find I have hurt someone’s feelings because I don’t have the Christmas Spirit.
That was not my intention.
Tris
Ain’t nearly fat enough, Tris.
You mean like this?
I usually spend Christmas alone and like any other day, because I live on my own and my family all lives in another country. Not much interested in the whole experience, really, but have no grudges against anyone who do.
Having said that, however, I’ll be back in New Zealand for Xmas this year, for the first time in 8 years, so it will be good to have it with everyone again, especially now there’s a plethora of children to share it with.
[QUOTE=What ExitJim {I hope I stayed non-religious enough twickster.}[/QUOTE]
Pfft. I don’t have an anti-religious agenda here, as I tried to make clear in my OP – I’m just trying to start a discussion for those of us, like Eve and me, who experience the season in a stated of bemused alienation.
Bemused detachment, in my case. When I lived in England I would treat it like a quieter and more boring than usual long weekend. I hardly never took leave from work, except for one year when I went home for the holidays for unconnected reasons, and one year when I tacked on holiday to a work trip to Peru and went to Machu Picchu!
Otherwise I’d work right up till Christmas eve, and between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve, so that colleagues with children and/or colleagues who celebrated Christmas could have the time off. It was a nice time at work, not many people around or much routine stuff to do, so I would use the time to clear out clutter and do all the things I usually didn’t have time for.
On the day I would get together with other non-celebrating friends and have a boozy laid-back day, go for walks if the weather wasn’t too bad, watch TV - probably not that different from what other people were doing, come to think of it.
I used to do cards, but like Eve I made them explicitly as New Year greetings.
Now I’m a wife (of a non-religious Catholic) and mum, we do the bi-cultural celebration in a half-hearted way. I light Hannuka candles, he is in charge of the Xmas decorations side of things, which means that rarely gets done. We have a Christmas eve/day meal with husband’s family, and our son receives some presents. I buy presents for some children and send gift baskets to a couple of family members and others, as is the custom here.
Don’t do cards any more, but send a new year’s message via e-mail with a family photo, but try not to make it too cheesy.
I’m not really the target poster for this thread, but I didn’t realize it until I typed all of this out and clicked “preview,” so I’m posting it anyway. 
I grew up Roman Catholic but have been agnostic for the past 8 years. However, I don’t see why not being religious anymore has to equal an automatic shunning of Christmas: it has more aspects than just the religious, it has always been my favorite holiday, and I choose to continue celebrating the spirit of it. Granted, the spirit seems to be harder and harder to find each year, and, yeah, there’s a whole shitload of commercial crap to put up with, but I refuse to give in to cynicism.
I put up a tree and decorate my house every year, even though I live alone and usually no one sees any of it. (It makes me happy, and that’s enough of a “why” for me.) I avoid religious decorations, which kind of sucks because I still have my really cool advent wreath even though I can’t use it anymore. I like Christmas music, and enjoy playing it on my piano – even the religious stuff, which I grew up with and love and don’t feel hypocritical for playing. I get a kick of out both giving and receiving presents, though the shopping experience is much more pleasant now that most of it can be done online – it makes me not mind so much the times when I have to go to an actual store. I send out Christmas cards, and deliberately avoid ones with religious sentiment. In fact, usually my cards don’t mention Christmas at all, just something like “Happy Holidays,” but this year I found some funny “A Washington D.C. Christmas” cards that I’m looking forward to sending out. I have no problem with being wished “Merry Christmas,” and I often wish others the same.
For Christmas Day I go to my mom’s house. The rest of my family is still Catholic, and my mom and brother continue my childhood tradition of singing “Happy Birthday” to the baby in the manger on Christmas morning (which, when I still believed, I always thought was kind of cool). I will stand with them, but won’t sing. Likewise, before dinner I will not say grace, but will hold hands with them while they do. In the late afternoon my brother and I go to Dad’s, where religion hardly comes up at all (except for Dad telling stories about the church he’s an organist for). I have Christmas traditions with my best friend and his family, too, and none of them involve religion.
I believe that I can celebrate the spirit of the season without implicitly condoning either organized religion or commercialism, so that’s what I do.
I’m an agnostic Jew so it’s not a big deal in my family life 
That being said I appreciate the whole “winter holiday season” - I go to holiday parties with friends (who have a wide range of religious beliefs), send “Happy Holidays” cards out, go play in the snow and generally enjoy people being nice to each other.
I don’t take offense at store clerks wishing me a “Merry Christmas” (although I have fun wishing them a “Happy Hanukah”).
Even if it’s only for a few weeks of the year it’s nice that people are overall more relaxed and warm and friendly.
I pretend I do, and I lie to help the flow of conversation. For example:
Cow-orker/Client: “So, done your Xmas Shopping”?
Me: “…”
Me: “Yes. You?”*
*I have never gone Xmas shopping in my life.
It pains me because I HATE lying, but it’s just much easier than trying to explain it and making everyone feel poopy. A cost of doing business aroudn here, if you will. 
Mr. McQ and I don’t do Xmas in our house, though a few times we have put up a ‘solstice tree’ just because it’s fun to decorate. Hubby grew up in the Worldwide Church of God and they were anti-Christmas, so he has bad associations and no connection to any organized religion. I’m militantly agnostic, but I don’t go into that with other people, especially this time of year, so if I get a card, I send back a ‘Happy Holidays’ card, and I give gifts to close friends and family, and to clients, because I get gifts from them, and telling people not to give you anything only makes them unhappy, in my experience. As for the day itself, I work, work, work. It’s one of my busiest days of the year.
Duh. Just who are they thanking? Not Nature.
That is cool, I meant I was try not to be too negative about the religious parts of the Holiday. Perhaps I was too careful. 
BTW: Happy Festivus everyone.
re: Gifts
Several years ago we told everyone that since we have all we need and so do all our family & friends, we are giving our “Christmas” money to various charities. So, no one gives us presents or expects any from us and no one’s feelings are hurt. Works for us.
If nobody else, I bet the cook deserves a thank you for slaving away cooking a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatos, cranberry sauce, etc.
Another note on gifts:
My husband and I several years ago decided it was just plain silly for us to try to buy Christmas/Solstice presents for each other, trying to guess what the other one wanted, usually failing, meaning both of us had to go shopping again to do the exchange thing. So we decided that we would take the money and spend it on a mid-winter vacation in January or February in some warm location. Then we would toast each other with our rum punch on the beach and say “Merry Christmas!”
He used to get really up tight – as in angry and hostile – because his mother would buy him really useless crap, things like polyester sweaters from K-Mart in weird patterns. I finally convinced him that his “enjoying” her present was really his gift to her. And that her “enjoying” whatever he wrapped up was her real gift to him.
Raised Catholic, currently too busy for trifles like religion, living in the most centrist, straight-down-the-middle part of the country. There is not one single thing about the modern Christmas season that I don’t find utterly nauseating.
The sappy, smarmy, insipid music played nonstop for a freakin’ month (ALL of it; stuff about angels and holiness and virginity does not get a free pass). Overcrowded, noisy malls. Even worse gridlock than usual. Chaotic parties. Frazzled nerves. Not being able to listen to the TV or the radio for a goddam minute without being bombarded by the season. Huge gaudy displays. Endless suffocating hype about the megahot new games coming out. Seemingly nobody willing to admit that it’s a pagan winter celebration that got a fresh coat of paint slapped on it. And of course, the idea that a pure pure virgin giving birth is somehow wonderful and ideal and perfect instead of the most freaking bizarre occurrence on the planet.
Thankfully, nobody’s expecting me to buy elaborate presents or set up a party, so I can pretty much play it cool the whole way. My current music game collection can help me deal with the rest.
You don’t have to thank anyone or anything. Giving thanks, or being thankful, is an expression of gratitude. On thanksgiving you are supposed to take pause and consider how good you have it. Even if you aren’t in to that, it’s a day to eat way too much food, drink some good wine, and spend some time with your family/friends.
Exactly. For that matter, why NOT be thankful to nature? It’s a pretty cool thing in itself, and DOES supply us with bounty. I don’t think it’s a requirement to be thankful to God in order to be thankful.
Jewish ex-Christian here, converted a few years ago. I now celebrate Hanukkah, not Christmas.
I don’t get way into decorating the apartment. I used to, but I’ve learned to appreciate that putting up a few menorahs is way easier than doing a Christmas tree. I do put up and light lots of menorahs, and we have two electric menorahs in the windows.
Mr. Neville and I exchange gifts for Hanukkah, and I buy Christmas presents for my parents, sister, and now my niece who was born this year. I don’t do a lot of shopping at malls or big-box stores, though- I generally prefer to shop online all year round, so that’s what I mostly do for the holidays. I don’t listen to music on the radio- I listen to CDs or a news radio station. I have a TiVo, almost never watch live TV, and fast-forward through almost all commercials (except for the few that I find amusing). So I don’t get too much exposure to Christmas music and all that.
I don’t visit my family at Christmas- I feel too much like the odd one out (I always feel that way around my family, but more so at Christmas). Also, they live in western Maryland, and December is not the best time to go there if you don’t like driving in snow (I definitely don’t). I prefer to go there sometime when it’s calmer and the weather is better.
I get two days off work for Christmas. Mr. Neville and I usually go to Sonoma to do wine tasting- it’s not crowded, and they don’t go all out for Christmas. On Christmas Day, we go out for Chinese food (old Jewish custom) or sushi for lunch on the way back- it’s a great day to drive back, since there’s almost no traffic, and everything in Sonoma is closed. Since I’m off work, we usually cook something for dinner like a turkey breast or a duck that we like, but that takes too long to cook on a weeknight.
I kind of miss celebrating Christmas, but not really. I don’t miss all the work of putting up Christmas trees and decorations. I also don’t miss the expectations of a perfect holiday with family. I certainly don’t miss the chaos involved in flying somewhere for Christmas.