Does not going to Mass, not having a party and giving gifts, not putting up decorations, and not feasting count as hating Christianity with bigotry and loathing? (I understand that hard-core Puritans have their own perspective…)
As I said, though, if someone takes advantage of the fact they do not have to go to work, or eats some of the seasonal food available (or, inversely, gets Chinese food because other places are closed), and you insist that counts as doing something special for Christmas, then, fine, they are doing something special for Christmas.
Definitely celebrating Christmas. Fair enough; you just hang out with different atheists/Jews/Turks than I do. (Is the motivation “kids want presents” in all these cases?)
If I was single (and when I was single) my Christmas efforts would be minimal and when I was single I was a self-identified Christian, though for the last 30 years I’ve been an agnostic/possible atheist as is my wife.
But for my wife Christmas is important so we have decorations and a tree and she likes having Xmas music playing, which I tolerate.
We spent 12/25 at my MIL’s house along with my gf’s brothers and their wives. We’ve done this for many years. Everyone except me and my gf are catholic. I always sit quietly while someone says “grace”.
This year we were all sitting at the beautifully decorated table and the next thing you know, food is being passed around. No grace!
I asked my gf what was up later that night at home. My MIL had contacted everyone (except me) prior to xmas dinner and told everyone we would be skipping grace this year. She decided I played along for years, this year they’d “do it my way”.
Well, going to mass is specifically a Catholic Christian tradition. Yes, but the hard core Puritans were deeply religion, they just didnt believe in that sort of celebration. They prayed on Christmas instead.
Like a bunch of other atheists raised in Christian traditions in this thread, my wife and I still enjoy ourselves a good Christmas. We decorate and put up a tree, and spent the days off with our relatives (some Christian, some not). and shared gifts and good food.
To my shame, I neglected on the charitable giving running up to this Christmas, though. I plan to make up in the run-up to the new year, though. Probably should better in general, in that regard.
I think the OP is asking a black/white question, when the answer is rooted in shades of grey: you are either an atheist who does not believe in God and does nothing at Christmas, or you are a full-blown Christian, with lots of church services, prayers, and so on at Christmas.
There are those of us in between. I am nominally a Christian (inoffensive Protestant sect), but while I know the Christmas story as reported in the Bible, Christmas to me is much more about Christmas trees and gifts and greeting cards than it is about the birth of Jesus. I don’t go to church, and haven’t for years. Nor has a local Roman Catholic friend. Neither of us feels the need to attend church when there are so many more important things to do on Sundays. Such as making the first race at Aqueduct or Woodbine at the local race book.
Again, I think the OP is asking a black/white question, when the answer lies in a shade of grey. I’m a part of that shade of grey.
We’re atheist, but culturally Christian. We do all the fun things we like about Christmas.
Even without a religious background, Christmas traditions are fun and sentimental. We play Christmas songs, even though we don’t believe in Jesus, Rudolph or Frosty, just because we enjoy them.
We look forward to catching up with family on a day that’s basically reserved for that purpose.
We cook dishes that we associate with Christmas and look forward to as a seasonal treat.
Christmas Day is a special day filled with traditions we value. We just don’t have any religious sentiment to go alongside it.
Christmas in Australia is buying all the bon-bons, wrapping-paper and last-minute chocolates at the supermarket on Christmas Eve, and then when the shops open again on Boxing Day, it’s HOT CROSS BUNS!!
I cleaned out the closets, which meant finally going through boxes that we had moved from our last place last May, and hadn’t unpacked yet. It was almost a treasure hunt, because I actually got into it, and went through a bunch of stuff of my mother’s.
My teenaged son slept until noon, internet surfed, and then got together with friends in the afternoon, once they were released from family obligations.
Most of the day, DH read Liz Cheney’s book on how dangerous Trump is, and spent the rest lamenting how it’s not going to reach the people who need it most.
Tofu with Chinese vegetables (like Moo Goo Gai Pan, but with deep-fried tofu bits instead of chicken), vegetable fried rice, vegetable Moo Shu, Sweet and Sour tofu (there’s exactly one restaurant in town that makes this), and snow peas in hoisen sauce, because everyone is always trying to hoard all the the snow peas in the other veggie dishes. And 2 orders of veggie Spring Rolls (they are small, and come six to an order). I ate 2, and that left 5 apiece for these 6’2 guys in my life.
This seems to be the general sentiment across Australia and New Zealand. Though undoubtedly a lot of people are from cultures that do not celebrate Christmas, they still participate in the spirit its intended, in non-specific ways, perhaps of wishing each other goodwill, or exchanging gifts, or having a special family dinner, or perhaps none of those. And nobody gets worked up about it either way.
That would have been Christmas Eve when they ate Christmas Cake.
Japanese Christmas cakes are a super-light, sponge cake layered with fresh whipped cream and strawberries.
Christmas Cakes not sold on the 24th became leftovers and unsellable. Back then, they jokingly referred to women not married at 25 as being “Christmas Cakes.”
The bubble economy in the late 80s and early 90s really changed Christmas celebration in Japan.
It became a Valentine’s Day as well, with guys giving very expensive presents to their girlfriends, dinner at a nice restaurant and staying over a good hotel. (Many single people stay with their parents until they are married.)
There were a number of TV dramas in the early 90s with a plot centering around relationships that the final outcome was the couple gets back together in time for Christmas.
One year, one of my friends lined me up with his friend in early December and it was obvious that she wanted a boyfriend, now! And, equality obvious that I wasn’t the one for her.
