Anyone practicing Christmas??

[Anymouse]

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Hello. Around Christmas time last year I began questioning the fallacies of the bible. I began to make a transition towards atheism and by March of 2011 I came out with my atheism to my family and to my at-the-time girlfriend (we broke up due to my atheism among other things). Since then I have received only a couple snide remarks from my family concerning my lack of faith (my family is general pretty accepting). However, as the holiday season approaches I am concerned about things getting heated over religion. I certainly do not want to observe Christmas as seriously as I have in the past, however there are certain aspects I will miss about it. Having been a worship leader in my previous church for 4 years, I have grown fond of many of the Christmas songs I used to play and despite the fact that I don't believe in the songs' message, I still think many of the them are quite beautiful. I am not sure how to approach this Christmas season since it will be my first atheist Christmas.

Do any of you atheists/agnostics have any similar feelings towards Christmas? Do you guys completely ignore the holiday all together? If you celebrate it, what sort of things do you cut out? I am just interested to hear your thoughts on Christmas

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Having finally let go of the trappings of Wicca recently, I will not give up Yule (we do not celebrate Christmas, as there is more empirical evidence for the Solstice than for Jesus).

My wife, long an atheist before I met her, celebrates Yule with me, as any party is an excuse for itself.

My atheist mother celebrates Yule; the die-hard Christians in the family have disowned us both anyway over religion, and the more moderate ones don't really care that much. We send presents and secular solstice cards out (yes, you can buy them), and generally get presents and Christmas cards back.

Christmas (a religious holiday) in the USA is of course a Federal holiday, despite any mention of the Establishment Clause to the contrary, but the only way around it would be either to abolish the Federal holiday (and the Christians would really howl to tear down the I Amendment then), or establish -all- religious holidays in Federal law (and we would have so many Federal holidays we'd never get anything done, but would be the most celebratory nation on the planet).

I like celebrations, and see nothing wrong with decorating the house or yard. I do not have a tree in my house (but have two huge firs out front). Getting ready to put up such decorations after Thanksgiving, and I am waiting to see what my new neighbours think of the atheist and Wiccan decorating for the holiday: will they understand Christianity does not have a lock on Winter Solstice?