Christmas

Every year without fail I have gone to my Grandma's house for Christmas, participated in traditions that have nothing to do with religions except for some angel ornaments she owns, exchanged gifts, consumed foods, and spent time with assembled family for whom Christmas serves as a Schelling point to all show up in the same place. I don't particularly care why December 25 is the family-gathering Schelling point except insofar as trying to change it would be difficult, or whether the traditions we have were calling themselves "religious" before I was born.

This might be a rather unpopular claim in a strongly atheist crowd like this one, but there's really no reason to feel particularly hostile towards ostensibly religious customs like Christmas.

Why should atheists care so much more about "Christ" part of "Christmas" than Christians? To most "religious" people Christmas is just a fun family tradition with not much more than lip service being paid to its religious aspect. "Yeah, sure, Jesus was born, whatever, let's have fun now".

Even more amusingly consumerist culture has been amazingly effective at eroding religious character of Christmas. The right things usually happen for the wrong reasons.

Echoing everyone else, I don't see why I need to give up my cultural traditions because they used to be associated with false beliefs about the world. Rituals don't have propositional content, so practicing them doesn't make me more wrong. We'll even have an angel on the top of the tree because angels are prettier to look at than stars (which have their origin as religious anyway). Also, I'll be listening to religious Christmas music because the traditional stuff is way better than most Christmas pop. We'll have a tree, lights, and probably some jokes about how Mary really got knocked up by a Roman soldier.

Pa rum pum pum pum!

I've always loved Christmas and I still do. We've got an artificial tree up--I'm a tree-hugger, and I finally felt too bad about watching a tree slowly die in my house each year. My daughter is learning quite a few new words right now, so she tells us "Lights! On? On?" when she wants it plugged in. We'll have good food and stuffed stockings and open gifts with music playing.

It could be that sharing holidays with others is a big reason why modern people stick with religion at all.

White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin (poetically expressing a sane take on the tradition of Christmas, with some Australian specifics).

My 10 & 12 year old girls are neutral to negative on the idea that god exists, my 10 year old clearly thinks the whole concept is ludicrous.

But we have no doubt about Christmas existing. We have lights, a tree and other decorations, gifts, and family comes over.

I see no reason theology should ruin a perfectly good holy day.

As an atheist and a capitalist, I find it quite satisfying that capitalism has largely displaced religion in one of Christianity's most important holidays. I have no problem celebrating that!

Since nobody else has said it yet: Chinese food. (OK, so that's because my family is Jewish...)

Stop having-fun-for-bad-reasons, and did you know that Láadan has a single word for that concept?

Thuna, in case anyone's wondering. The whole sentence might be Bód ril nóthuna wi (I think).

People have been celebrating around the solstice long before Christianity sold the holiday. Most of the Christmassy things: gifts, trees, fires, food, song and so on are left over from pre-Christian holidays. Take back Christmas a have a ball.

This whole idea is actually a major source of conflict in my family. I consider myself an atheist, but I enjoy Christmas and see it as an excuse to get together with my family, exchange gifts, listen to the music, eat food, light a fire in the fireplace, and just generally experience quality time with my few blood relations. I'm actually quite attached to the holiday. It has been the source of many fond memories.
However, my parents aren't letting me participate this year, because of my beliefs. They think Christmas is about Jesus and by celebrating I'll be cheapening the holiday for them. They don't understand why, if I'm an atheist, I should even want to celebrate Christmas, and that I'm not being consistent with what I think. Therefore, I won't be able to give or receive presents, go to church or do Christmas related things with them. I personally agree with Alicorn's and taw's comments: I see no reason to feel hostile towards the holiday. Does anyone have any advice for what I should do?

We will have a family dinner, seeing each other for the first time in months. Our one grand-daughter will thrill us with her enthusiasm. It will be a lovely, cozy day with good food and conversation. No tree;no decorations. Worst thing is that there is no place to go for morning coffee.

I will be at home with my girlfriend, our daughter and her other two daughters. There will be much eating of food, drinking of beer, and watching the 3yo play with all the toys she will be receiving. Skype to her grandmothers is likely. I will not treating it as a Mandatory Fun Day, not having ever been a fan of such.

My grandmother was religious (Seventh Day Adventist) and tried very hard to dun it into our heads, but the only God observed (or slightly glanced at) at Christmas was Mammon, as is of course standard in suburban Western civilisation. And Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, which one television station ran every year.

Christmas is barely even religious anymore. My family is a bunch of non-believing Jews with one probably-non-believing Christian grandma, and we all celebrate because we like celebrating.

Thankfully, Russia doesn't celebrate Christmas that widely (and its Christmas is on January 7 anyway). The main holiday here is New Year, which shares many attributes with Western Christmas, such as decorated trees and a Santa-like figure, but is otherwise completely secular. One thing I can thank the Bolsheviks for, at least.

Guns Germs and Steel is a horrible book.

I was going to give myself the gift of sleep deprivation, but I opened that one early (woo uberman!). So far, it's just going to be another day for me.

Ideas to spend christmas.

1. Start calling it newtonmas and have meetups of secular people.

2. Rest and rejuvenate. Go to a spa or something, meditate, read up on good books. (What I will be doing plus visiting some friends)

3. Trade in markets which don't have a christmas holiday (are there many of those?) Utilise the lack of people to find arbitrage opportunities that might have otherwise not been caught.

Going to a friend's party.

I think the saying "It's the thought that counts", when referring to a poor christmas present choice, is about as useful as saying "it's OK that you two-boxed and now have no money, it's the thought of two boxes of money that counts" to a Newcomb puzzler.

Considerate present buyers should win, and that means getting good presents for people.

Though I haven't done any formal studying, it seems from my experience that there is little correlation between "how long I spend thinking" and how useful or appreciated a present is, and even little correlation with the amount spent.

How should I choose (or, think about choosing) presents for people in a way more likely to result in my desired outcome, and with less waste of time rehashing the same ground?

What are you doing for Christmas?

Bought Two and a Half Men: The Complete Seasons 1-6 (2980 minutes). That should suffice.