Poll for atheists - Do you still celebrate Christmas and why?

[Redbeard The Pink]

What better way to wage the War on Christmas than to take Christ right the fuck out of it and then celebrate it anyway as a secular gift-giving festival? It's, like, our duty as atheists, right? They're gonna accuse us anyway, so why not go ahead and do it? Let's take Christ out of Christmas this year, then keep that Christmas spirit going all year long by also taking him out of everything else, ever.


 bless us, every one.

[Ivershu]

I celebrate Christmas mostly out of family tradition, although I have considered that once I live on my own I may celebrate a more general winter holiday. I don't really see any harm in celebrating it as an atheist anyway, there's nothing inherently wrong in adapting tradition and keeping it for the sake of tradition.

[Silver]

I do not celebrate any holidays due to their commercialization and not being fond of socializing with people.

[Aroura]

I celebrate the holidays I was raised with, just with my own take on them.  Kind of like how Christians aren't celebrating Saturnalia, I'm not celebrating "Christ"mas, but I am finding it a good excuse to bake and eat goodies, do crafts with my kid, clean and decorate my house, and spend time with family and friends.  I do buy gifts for my kid, but I make gifts for everyone else.  Some years we can goods, some years we make chocolates, or batches of fresh baked goods, some years I sew up and send out cloth shopping bags, or aprons, or little zipper bags, things like that.

We still decorate and hide eggs on Easter, because why not celebrate new life (and chocolate candies) in spring?  We eat turkey on Thanksgiving, not because I wish to celebrate the pilgrims, or the slaughter of native peoples, but because it is tradition to enjoy a fall feast with family.

I find most non-religious people still celebrate these holidays, just in their own way.  Pretty much just like most religious people do. whether most like to admit it or not, they celebrate these MOSTLY as family get togethers, with the religious parts of the celebrations being quite minor, and sometimes pretty non-existent.

P.S.  Don't be a Grinch.  

[Mermaid]

Not really. It's pretty much unavoidable since it is a big part of our cultural fabric though, so in a way, yes, and in a way, no. I get presents for a friend and that's it. My husband and I don't exchange presents and my family does its own thing.

[Regina]

Nobody seriously celebrates Christmas as "a religious holiday" anymore, let's be real.

We go so mad for Christmas in the UK that it (unofficially) starts in October before Halloween, but nobody is on the news or in the shops talking about "celebrating the birth of Christ". It has just become a commercialised holiday where everyone decorates their house nicely, buys presents and gets fat. In that sense, yes I celebrate Christmas, it's a nice holiday to brighten up an anotherwise bleak British winter.

And as Aurora suggest, Christians didn't originate the festival. It's of Pagan origin, under different names.

[Shining_Finger]

The real reason for winter holidays is quite simple and explains why they are widespread.
Christmas, Hanukkah, the pagan holiday which Christmas came out of, Saturnalia, all were made to regroup with Friends and Loved ones, because odds were you weren't going to see some of them again.
It was a time where you overate, danced, told stories around the camp fire and sleeped in. It was a time to make memories. The odds are that someone on this thread will lose a relative soon. This is a time to make memories, so make the best of it. It is practically inevitable that you will eventually be the lost relative, so give your friends and loved ones the memories you would want them to have with you.
This is a perfectly secular reason to celebrate winter holidays, whether it be Christmas, Hanukkah or Saturnalia.

[Natachan]

I don't care. I just do not care.

Most of the time we have people over and give gifts and eat a duck, prime rib, and ribs. We wear ugly sweaters. But some times not.

I hate the cooking and cleaning of the holiday. It makes the fiancé happy so we do it. Otherwise I don't give two fucks.

[Gawdzilla]

I myself do. Although  not for any religious reasons, It just seems to me to be a good excuse to make kids happy. Am I a hypocrite for celebrating this holiday as an atheist?
I have no flipping clue how to add the polling options lol clicked "i want to post a poll" but theirs no where to add the options.

I believe in the two party system, one at Christmas, one at New Year's Eve.

[Rev. Rye]

I do. It's a good time to relax, spend time with my family, and get in the season to actually be nice to people. Besides, it's 11 days after my birthday, and it's nice to have an 11-day extention to my birthday.