Why don’t we just celebrate the winter solstice by exchanging gifts, putting up lights, dressing as Santa, putting up stockings, having office parties, sing non-religious seasonal songs, etc.? This could be a really wonderful seasonal celebration, without anything overtly religious.
Of course, religious Christians are free to do whatever they please, without forcing it onto the rest of us.
Actually isn’t that basically what we have now? People who want to be religious and go to midnight mass do, and the ones who don’t just celebrate without Jesus and friends.
Not to get into GD territory but are people actually forcing Jesus into Christmas where you live?
That’s what my Wife and I do. A party or two, nice dinner, exchange gifts. Nobody is forcing religion on us. If they did I would just simply wish them a happy holiday and think - whatever floats your boat.
Me and my atheist brother celebrate Christmas. It’s an excuse to eat a holiday feast, gather around a gaudy tree and exchange shiny presents; the religious aspects have always been secondary at most even for the religious members of my family.
We Pagans have things like Yule and Festivus and the Solstice which we celebrate around this time of year, so yes, some of us non-Christians do celebrate the season. We also decorate, exchange gifts, have parties, and so forth. Since the Christians in Europe appropriated a lot of formerly Pagan practices (holly, mistletoe, trees, Santa, etc.) we tend to blend into the background quite a bit, as our holiday trappings have a strong resemblance to those of Christians.
But no real need to make an effort to rid Christmas of Christ, he’s slowly disappearing on his own. This scares many Christians causing them to fight the mythical War on Christmas.
Oh, weird. My family’s never really celebrated it. Well–sometimes we’ve had Christmas dinner because my mom’s grandmother was Christian and traditionally (when she was alive) had a huge ass Christmas celebration. But no tree or presents. I just always assumed that movies and Chinese food was the norm for most non-xians.
I prefer the traditional riot. Actually, that’s kind of like how my in-laws do it in Colombia. (Mass is optional.) But this shut-up, nuclear family family thing bores me.
Not even close. Those are stereotypically Jewish things, and I sincerely doubt that most of them actually do it. Most Americans come from historically Christian cultures, and when they aren’t religious, they still celebrate the time of year with the traditional trappings – they (well, we) still call it Christmas, and many continue to feature angels and/or creches in their decorations, and sing songs about Christ’s birth, without actually believing in or caring about God or Jesus. I’m as die-hard an atheist as you’re likely to find, but I still think Handel’s Messiah is beautiful. (well, the choral parts, anyway – I’ve never liked the solos)
Most of my Jewish friends adhere quite strongly to the movies/Chinese food tradition.
Well, when I said non Christians, I guess I just meant people who had no religious connection at all to Christmas–not so much atheists who might have grown up in the tradition. It makes sense that atheists might celebrate it anyway. But doesn’t that mean that the religion does have some significance to it? Since the people celebrating it are either non religious or atheist types from traditionally Christian backgrounds, as opposed to say Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., is the religious aspect completely gone?
That’s an interesting article, but I’m not aware that anyone associates Christmas with New England – most of our Christmas cliches are visibly rooted in Victorian England.
Most Americans are Christians. Most celebrate Christmas in earnest piety, but they also partake of the secular celebrations that are mixed with it - the tree, the gifts, the lights, etc. Those things are not Christian things, they are European things, and I would not expect people from other cultures, or their descendants – Christian or not – to value them. As Americans, however, some non-Christians, and many non-European Christians, have adopted them; I know Jews with Christmas trees and lights and holly wreaths, and others who exchange gifts and cards.
Are far as “Movie-and Chinese-Takeout Day” is concerned, I suspect that the people who do that are demographically distinct from the people who don’t, and they just don’t hang out together.
What today’s Christians don’t realize that non-denominational Christmas saved the holiday. Christians fought about the very idea of celebrating Christmas (the day of the year is not said in the bible and if the good Lord wanted us to celebrate his birthday he would have told us when it was)
Christmas was also getting ‘out of hand’ and being a bit too drunken and rowdy. So making it a family oriented/kid oriented/not religious holiday, really saved it from total extinction.
I’m an atheist—and most of the extended family is pretty darn heathenistic—and I celebrate it. I believe fervently in the holy trinity of Santa, Rudolph, and the Elves.
And heck, the holiday materialism doesn’t bother me—as someone who is a materialist, in a couple of senses, a materialist holiday is entirely appropriate. Double plus
I don’t really give any more thought to the literal meaning of the word “Christmas,” than I do to the literal meanings of the weekdays. Sometimes I facetiously say “Happy Solstice,” but I don’t have a problem celebrating “Christmas” as a secular winter holiday.
The real meaning of Chrismas. even before it was Christmas, has really been to make the coldest, darkest, most depressing part of the year into the brightest, warmest and cheeriest. The real miracle is that it works.
Here in Scandinavia we celebrated christmas, or, rather, “yule” [jul], before we heard about Jesus Christ, and we probably will celebrate it when he’s forgotten. I would say no more than twenty percent or so, if even that, of Swedes associate jul with Christ, even though, naturally, there are some christian symbols involved (although none in my house, AFAIKS, except for the star).
I know about a zillion Hindus who did not grow up in the christmas culture but live in the states now, and the vast majority of them put up a tree, exchange presents, and have a nice dinner. So they do celebrate the holiday. But they usually don’t do the overtly-Jesusy stuff.