Yule (jul) is an ancient Scandinavian Norse-religion mid-winter feast. Why do you want to replace one religious feast with another religious feast, neither of which have anything to do with secularism or atheism?
If you want your own holiday why don’t you go make your own holiday instead of rebranding other people’s religious feasts? I suggest Bob’s Day to be held every year the 17 Feb. But there are already have many secular traditions. Like World Cup, Olympic Games, royal coronations, presidental elections, Black Friday, Thanksgiving, New Years celebration, etc.
You are more than welcome to join the party everyone is welcome but if you are not happy you can always carry on as normal and go to work.
Have a happy Winter/Summer Festival
For most people, I’d say ‘yule’ is synonymous with Christmas, anyway, so this would be just a change that isn’t a change.
For those that don’t, you’ll successfully piss off the majority of both sides.
Those who celebrate Yule, and not Christmas (neo-pagans of the Germanic Revivalist stripe, frex), you’re further legitimizing the Christian hijacking of their holiday.
For those who celebrate Christmas, not Yule, this is a total ‘War on Christmas’ moment.
Every Christmas people talk about Saturnalia or some other winter-solstice festival. Christmas can’t have been made to be Dec 25 to replace 5 or 6 unrelated (religiously speaking) festivals.
Hence, every year, I re-post this article about the date of Christmas being unrelated to mid-winter festivals. Of course, some celebrations have become part of Chistmas, but even those that look obvious, like trees, have more than one possible explantaion.
As to the OP, Yule makes even less sense for an atheist/non-Christian to be associated with.
How so? Christmas is an “American Holiday” simply because most Americans are Christians. It’s a “thing we (sic) do” because the overwhelming majority of “we” are Christians. I don’t doubt that there are non-Christians who enjoy the wintry trappings that have become the American Christmas experience, but none of that would exist at all if not for the existence of the Christian holiday.
Well, if Christians didn’t celebrate Christmas (and it’s only relatively recently that they started), maybe Americans would have glommed onto Chanukkah, since it fills a similar consumerist role of encouraging lots of gift-buying and -giving.
It never did, until it started being associated with the Christmas season in America. The tradition of Chanukkah “gelt”, i.e., gifts of money, has a long history, but it’s only in the last century, in America, that that got transformed into the consumerist gifts of “stuff”.
It’s ridiculous to expect citizens celebrating a holiday so enshrined in our diverse nations culture while also keeping ‘Christ’ in Christmas. Santa is ‘Buddy Christ’ any way.
Oddly we managed to celebrate Christmas in my office without the need to sanitize it for your approval. We held fund raisers to sponsor various charities and supported our fellow workers who became seriously ill.
Atheists can celebrate the birth of Jesus and give of themselves without any religious belief system. Occasional one of them will burst into flames but it’s pretty rare. Usually they just see the benefit of helping others.
I’m not sure I’d credit Christmas with what you’re describing, but it’s not like Americans (or humans in general, really) need much of an excuse to take things to excess.
Amen, pun intended. We had a great Christmas. Kids opening presents, a huge dinner for 12, tree, ugly sweaters, the works and no mention of religion, not one word. And we all call it Christmas.
The idea of Christmas being celebrated as a largely secular holiday is a very old one indeed. Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is what, 150 years old? How much religion is in it?
I say we re-brand Merry Christmas as Merry Boobsday—a day when all women the world over flash their boobs to one and all. Who wouldn’t find that a merry holiday?
…well, I guess the merriment wouldn’t include gay men…ok, back to the drawing board.
