Do you celebrate Christmas ?

[unholy1971]

Even though I am a devout atheist, I still celebrate Christmas, in a nonreligious manner of course.  I was just curious how many of you celebrate this holiday?

[Chronos]

Yes, I celebrate Commerce Day, though begrudgingly.

[Crow]

No not really. I do not decorate my house, make a Christmas dinner, hand out cards, expect any presents (though i do buy them when people have told me they have got me something), or celebrate the birth of Jesus or any of the other deities related to celebrations around the time of year. However, I usually end up visiting my parents on Christmas day and they do celebrate it in the traditional pagan sense so I usually buy them something and eat the Christmas dinner they cook.

[Sandra Craft]

Even though I am a devout atheist, I still celebrate Christmas, in a nonreligious manner of course.  I was just curious how many of you celebrate this holiday?

I can't be said to celebrate Xmas, but I do enjoy it.  I enjoy buying and wrapping gifts (tho there isn't that much capitalism in it since I don't have that kind of money), baking cookies and bread for friends and neighbors and driving around at night looking at the lights.  I decorate a bit as well, since December is the one month of the year I can indulge my deer fetish without getting odd looks.  Over the years I've bought or been given a variety of deer-themed ornaments and they now make up the march of the reindeer display across my front window sill.  This year I'm also planning to go the the local UU church on Xmas to hear their new preacher.  She was raised UU but her parents were raised Hindu and I'm interested in seeing what, if any, different spin this puts on things.

[Crow]

This year I'm also planning to go the the local UU church on Xmas to hear their new preacher.

UU church?

[Sandra Craft]

This year I'm also planning to go the the local UU church on Xmas to hear their new preacher.

UU church?

Unitarian Universalist.  Uber-liberal, started as a common ground for Xtians and Jews, and now includes everybody including atheists.  My local church is a fairly even mix of Xtians, Buddhists and Pagans. 

[Tank]

Yes, I celebrate Commerce Day, though begrudgingly.

I too engage in Commerce Day, mainly through historical expectation.

[OldGit]

Same here.  When you're part of a large family, you'd be a measly old curmudgeon to spoil it for them.  But I will not  go to any church service.

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

[Pharaoh Cat]

I show up at the family get-together.  Other than that, I don't celebrate the thing.  But the branch of the family I get together with is mostly a bunch of infidels so Santa is the ruling myth, not Mary's boy.  This branch of the family used to exchange gifts, but recently stopped, largely at my urging, in favor of spending our money on doing something cool together, like going to a Broadway play.  (We're Jerseyites so Manhattan is a fairly short train ride away.)

Why did I so urge?  Because we sucked at the whole gift thing.  Most of us ended up handing most of us money in cards.  Stupid.  I hate stupid.

Up till this year I had given money to my daughters for Christmas, to their delight, but this year they sucked me dry financially from a variety of angles, so I had nothing to give, hence they got nothing.

I would celebrate the winter solstice from a religious naturalism perspective if anyone close to me wanted to, but no one does.  I would even go all the way to Yule as a Wiccan Sabbat without complaint, as Wicca, in celebrating the God and Goddess as lovers, is really in essence celebrating sexual reproduction, and hell, if we're going to celebrate something, why not that?  After all, where would we be without it?  I find it easy to interpret Wicca from a religious naturalism perspective.  Magic spells done in public are performance art as far as I'm concerned, and often quite creative in the details.  They're fun to watch, or even to participate in.  I don't have to believe they really work.  Nobody straps a lie detector to ritual participants.  And my reverence toward sexual reproduction is completely sincere.

If it isn't obvious - Yes, there was a time when I was a practicing Wiccan.

[Asmodean]

No, I do not. In fact, it sort of ruins my social life, as most people I know spend hristmas with families and whatnot and The Asmo... He sits and plays PS3 from dusk to dusk

[history_geek]

Well if by "Christmas" you mean running around from shop to shop, buying all sorts of gifts for your family and possible others and decorating a tree, and then on Chrismas Eve going to your parents place and eating a Chrismas meal (which is supposed to be something like this:

but which translates to me and my brothers as maybe a bit of pork meat, coca-cola and pizza ), then around 5-6pm we get around presents and after 7pm I'm at my place, playing my newly gotten games or toying around with new Warhammer miniature bits, and continnue such activity throught the Christmas Day, only interupting them to go to my parent's place to eat.

If that's what you mean by "Christmas" then indeed, I do celebrate it.

But if you mean things that include going to church (well, I have done it occasionally to listen to xmas carols, but meh) and doing other religious rituals that are considered part of the Christian tradition, thought they actaully originate from pagan practices, and saying prayers all day and what have you, then no, I do not celebrate it.

So it depends on how you define this paticular holiday

[Stevil]

I celebrate Christmas, its a traditional holiday, has absolutely nothing to do with any religion.
The Christians wanted to steal Christmas from the pagans, I refer to the Christians as the Grinches that stole Christmas.
I find it funny when Christians state that Jesus is the reason for the season, because he is most definately not. Jesus had nothing to do with it. They stole it and pretended it was JC's birthday because they don't have a clue when his birthday was and didn't like pagan holidays but couldn't take the holiday away completely so the renamed it as JC's birthday, its like a pretend thing, which is completely consistent with the rest of Christianity.

Christmas is a slap in the face to the ignorance of the Christian faith and the followers.
BTW I love how it has been so commercialised. My wife and I by each other Christmas presents a day or two after Christmas when everything is on sale.

[kimberlyfaith81]

I have lovely memories of Christmas.  I still celebrate Christmas in some ways.  Christmas dinner with the family, gifts for all the important people in my life, decorations, travelling around looking at lights.  Christmas has lost most of its religious undertones, much to the dismay of the Christians.  Which I think is fitting, since they did steal it to begin with.  To me, its just a tradition.  Traditions I don't enjoy have been chunked (namely, church).  But, for the foreseeable future, this atheist will be joining right in with ample Christmas spirit.  My local nurses' association chapter also adopts a family for Christmas, which is especially fun for me.  Giving to children that wouldn't otherwise receive.  

[AnimatedDirt]

Christmas has always been the best of times since my childhood.  As a family, we've always gathered together for ski vacations starting at Thanksgiving and ending in the Spring (one major vacation during this period).  If the vacation landed on Christmas week...it was just that much better getting gifts AND partaking of our favorite winter sport.  There's nothing like a white Christmas.  I don't know how the southern hemisphere celebrates a north pole guy visiting at summer time...heh.  Even the wet and warm Christmas in So. Cal. is to some degree a let down if we are in town (as we will be this Christmas).

[Asmodean]

I think, in the end, how much one appreciates christmas is largely dependant on having someone to hang out with and the quality of that someone...