I celebrate Christmas with my parents and siblings and niblings. I buy them presents and gladly accept theirs, and I eat dinner with them. And that’s about it.
Even when I was a good little Christian, the holiday wasn’t religious. My parents didn’t take us to special church services. We didn’t have religious decorations (no Nativity scenes in the front yard). As kids, we were all about Christmas trees and Santa. Jesus was NOT the reason for the season. Jesus was the reason for all the other days of the year. I know it seems strange, but Christmas was almost like a vacation from all that churchy religious stuff.
My parents were raised Christian (though as Mom was a JW, no Christmas in her family). I wasn’t raised anything, but we did a secular version of Christmas (tree, gifts, special food, family gatherings, Christmas music on the radio: no mention of Jesus). Since our culture basically shoves Christmas down my throat from October on, might as well enjoy it with its nice traditions. It’s nice to mark the onset of winter.
The fact that Christians named it and feel some ownership over it affects me not a whit. The pagan Romans named December and the pagan Anglo-Saxons named Friday, so it’s just another historical footnote. We can celebrate the same day in similar ways for different reasons.
Jewish atheist here. Don’t celebrate and no desire to do so, except in the most generic of ways (give gifts to co-workers, mail man, participate in holiday parties if invited etc). I certainly don’t feel it’s a secular holiday even if many people choose to only observe it’s secular aspects.
Spring and it’s only a “probably”. We don’t really have an exact date, the Church simply picked a time of year which didn’t have anything else yet and which did have celebrations in every location where they already were present. Some aspects of your celebration are from countries Up North but the time of year is not.
“Celebrate” is the wrong word. I acknowledge. I wish people Merry Xmas, happy holidays, & so on. I buy gifts. Sometimes I decorate a tree. I put colored lights outside. I grit my teeth while in retail establishments that play the goddamned music. (NOte: “Sleigh Ride” and “Baby It’s Cold Outside” I do not regard as Xmas music; ditto “Marshmallow World.” But oh my god “Santa Baby,” I don’t care if it is the Divine Miss Kitt.
So basically I am about half Grinch. Heart only a size and a half too small.
Don’t much like anything about winter actually. Nope.
I think you can celebrate it as a secular holiday or a religious one. The retail bit and Santa Claus, secular. Creches and midnight mass, religious. Never did the latter and not wild about the former.
Agnostic, grew up as a Christian, and my husband is Christian. Neither of us celebrates Christmas all that much but I enjoy (some of) the lights and giving loved ones a small gift or two. I’m not all that interested in the rest of the trappings, and my husband dislikes all of it. I’ve had a lovely small tree for the last 10-11 years and this is the first year I’ve put it up since we’ve been together. It’s pretty and his opinion doesn’t go beyond “if you’re happy, I’m happy” so it works out.
As someone raised as a religious Catholic, I’m not talking about the sentiment–I’m talking about the practice.
What is Christian about crowding into Walmart at 5:00 am the day after Thanksgiving? What is Christian about putting a tree up in your living room? Or spray painting snowmen in your shop window when you live in Southern California. (In general, what kind of Christian belief is expressed by singing about or obsessing with representations of snow for three or four weeks out of the year–mechanically sending greeting cards with pictures of sleighs and whatnot to people you don’t even care about or communicate with otherwise? In general, what does snow have to do with Christ?)
What–in any meaningful way–is Christian about putting a set of plastic antlers on your vehicle in December? Or lights up on lights up on your house, or candy canes, or fruit cakes? Or pumpkin spice lattes? Does anyone know (or would they care) why they are wearing red and green clothing in December? What is Christian about egg nog?
What is Christian about a huge, grotesque, illuminated inflatable Santa Clause riding a motorcycle on your front lawn in December?
And if this, in whatever twisted way, is truly an expression of someone’s Christian sentiment, I have to wonder if they also practice Advent and go to mass.
What is Christian about that to me is that it’s something that Christians did, and that we, as Jews, didn’t. It was part of what defined us as “other”.
It’s just part of the tradition, and it feels good. Doesn’t mean I’m going to buy into the fiction. Even in Thailand, they’ve adopted Christmas decorations for New Year. I even know a Muslim who loves to celebrate Christmas.
We’re both zero on the religious scale, but Christmas is an ingrained tradition from childhood. We celebrate the memories of those times, we listen to the music that we remember, we decorate with lights and with ornaments that we collected around the world, we have a movie watch list, etc. Basically, we like the mood of the season, and the fact that the days will be getting longer. But we don’t do the Jesus thing or exchange gifts, both of which would be pointless for us.
Well, the only thing that prevented you from putting an ugly inflatable Santa on your front lawn was good taste.
Americans perpetuate this myth that we’re such a religious country, but most of what we do is just empty posturing, and even when it is technically religious, it often isn’t very spiritual.
My answer requires clarification. I do the Santa thing for my 10 year old. I look forward to the day I can end this tradition. I do baking because my kid enjoys it. I don’t put up a tree but we decorate with lights because my kid enjoys it. Her birthday is the day after Christmas and for me that’s a much bigger day to celebrate.
I enjoyed Christmas for years but I’m so disgusted by all the greed and commercialism and the stupid “war on Christmas” garbage and the constant reminders that “Jesus is the reason for the season” and the cracks about how atheists hate God but they sure don’t mind getting gifts on his birthday. It’s used to further agendas. Maybe it’s always been this way but I notice it more now.
My family generally does a very low-key Christmas with the fun secular stuff. There’s a tree and lights and cookies and a turkey dinner. Gift-giving is limited to things like chocolates and calendars; commercials telling people to buy electronics and whatnot as Christmas gifts weird me out.
Comedian Tim Minchin has a rather lovely song about celebrating Christmas as an atheist.
And it’s such a damn’ obnoxious (!!!) holiday. I can ignore Easter and other holidays, but it’s impossible to get away from Xmas - radio stations drop their regular programming in favour of Xmas music, as do stores that normally play music over their speakers; lights and other decorations everywhere; every cashier in every store assuming that you want to have a merry Xmas… And it all starts well over a month ahead of time, before Thanksgiving.
The only good thing about it is that I can get things like eggnog, fruitcake and stollen, which for some reason are not available the rest of the year.
I am a former Christian and celebrate. We do all the secular things - tree, Santa, gifts, etc. and I also put up a nativity scene and sing Christmas hymns. Sometimes we even read the story from Luke. I used to feel conflicted about these, but screw it. The nativity was my grandmothers and the other things bring back good memories for me. With my kids, I simply preface things by telling them that the story is part of what Christians believe and celebrate. We read lots of different religious stories and texts, so they probably think of it about the same as they do the Ramayana.
I didn’t grow up in a religious environment and I continue to not be religious.
I love Christmas-- I love the lights, the Christmas music, the food, seeing my family. I love everything about it.
I don’t consider it a secular holiday. It’s clearly a Christian holiday, though mashed up with various other traditions. But I celebrate it culturally rather than religiously. I don’t take any particular pains to stick to the secular stuff. I have a soft spot for nativity scenes and Silent Night. But I’m not going to be showing up at church any time soon, unless I get an interest in observing or something.
