I Admit It... I'm An Atheist... AND I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!

[arwalden]

The lights, the trees, the decorations, the smells, the food...

Only, around here it's a Winter Solstice tree... the holiday cards say simply "Season's Greetings", and there's no candlelight mass on December 24th.

Other than that... the Dickensian and Rockwellian trappings of the season have always had a special place in my heart.

I'm ready for Christmas... we need a little Christmas... right this very minute!!

-- Allen

[VelmaD]

1. You aren't the only one

I am completely a-religious and I love the lights and tinsel and music and xmas cookies and the whole thing. Bring on the holidays - I love 'em all.

[soleft]

2. The lights, the trees, the decorations, the smells, the food...

What about the PRESENTS!

Oh, and the music, and most of all the Pee Herman Christmas Special

[VermontDem2004]

3. Same here

I love Christmas. I also love Thanksgiving. The Turkey, the food, the football on TV, etc.

[Maple]

4. Bah humbug!

.

[MrBenchley]

5. Make it three

The Babe in the Manger and Santa's list are all charming stories...

And I love the Dickens story...

[blm]

6. Me too!

.

[WoodrowFan]

7. Christmas Eve Service

I love Christmas Eve service at my church, everybody standing in a huge circle holding candles and singing "Silent Night." Plus, the religious part (even though i know it's tacked onto a pagan holiday) is meaningful to me.



Arwalder, that wassn't you at Chipotle at lunch was it? Looked kinda like you.

[kimchi]

8. I love the season too.

Almost all the traditions have pagan roots. Our Solstic celebration looks almost exactly like any Christmas celebration. Just substitute "Sun" for "son".

But I'm not bitter about the commercialism or the stolen ideas. I think there is a human NEED to get together during the darkest time of the year. That's one reason why the traditions have lasted so long.

Anyway, anyone who argues that "Peace on Earth" is a bad idea is a whacko.

[Jakov]

9. Me too

I like X-Mas as well, but I don't do the gift thingy.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Yuletide

I'm with you. I start getting all Xmassy around Hallowe'en. I break out the Christmas music around the first of December and the lights go up as soon as it's not too embarassing to plug them in. (And they stay up until about Easter.)

But Chrismas is not a specifically Christian holiday to begin with.

The Christmas season is the one time of year when Christians actually act the way Jesus of Nazareth would have been proud of.

There's a song by Dar Williams called The Christians and the Pagans, a Wicca-influenced song for the season.

--bkl
All I want for Christmas is for Al Gore (or Howard Dean or Wesley Clark or Dennis Kucinich) to be President.

[nini]

11. nothing wrong with that..

..it's a great time of year for family, friends and lots of good eats!

and yes! we can use some Christmas now!

[RoonShark]

12. Happy Saturnalia

I think the Easter holiday took over from the Roman Spring holiday, Juvenalia. I'm not sure which of today's holidays began as Bacchanalia, or for that matter, whether Genitalia was a holiday at all.

[qb]

13. My wife is another atheist for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc.

I could take it or leave it, but I indulge her.
We tell the kids that Santa & the Easter Bunny are make-believe stories that make the holidays fun (they haven't asked about Jesus, but the answer will be similar). At Thanksgiving, we thank the workers who provided us with the food.

[radwriter0555]

14. HAPPY HANNUKWANZMAS!

I like it too. I'm in the throes of deciding what 'color' my theme is this year. I'm telling you, PINK was incredibly successful a couple years back.

I just can't decide yet this year... I need to get out and see what the choices are...

[supernova]

16. LOL! LOVE IT!

That's too funny not to pass on. Happy Hannukwanzmas, everyone!

[supernova]

15. Sucker for Christmas

I love it all... the tree, the cards, the lights, the tinsel, the food, the parties and get togethers, candles. I become such a kid again. Oh, I can't wait!!

[DrWeird]

17. That's OK, X-mas is a pagan holiday anyway.

All that stuff about Jesus got tacked on later.

[supernova]

18. That's true

And a lot of people aren't aware of it, sadly.

[Snow]

21. Heheh - guess when "shepherds watch their flocks by nght" in the

Middle East - rest assured it ain't winter.

[thom1102]

24. Sort of an incentive gift for pagan conversion...

And if you act now, you can keep your holiday, but you have to use it as a celebration of the birth of Jesus. No, you don't have to change your traditions, we'll find a way to incorporate them. I once heard that Jesus was actually born in August, or April, I think.

[supernova]

25. Yes,

definitely not the end of December. LOL! Nice parody. :thumbsup:

[pink_poodle]

19. Me too!! Fun huh? -nm

"

[arcane1]

20. no way man, give me FESTIVUS!

for the rest of us!!!

:party:

[BlueJazz]

27. Ha!...I'd forgotten about Festivus....LOL!

.

[MaryBear]

22. Holidays celebrate the Holy in all of us,

whatever the faith tradition one is rooted in. I love Christmas, too!

[AntiCoup2K4]

23. That's okay. I'm a Christian and I despise XMAS

Not the birth of Christ, but the sickening display of commercialism that starts the day after Labor Day and doesn't even end on Dec 26 anymore. I avoid any mention of the "holidays" until December.

[Maple]

26. Yes, everyone rails against corporations

and the consumer society and excess and how they're forced into buying stuff they don't need or want because of slick advertising....yet look at all this enthusiasm for an artificial holiday celebration.

Only kids should get any presents. Having the family together for a nice meal and bonding is sufficient otherwise. And as for the tons of tinsel and plastic...and 'concern' for the poor that abruptly ends in January...aack ptui!

[Interrobang]

28. Well, I'm an atheist, and I hate Christmas, but not why you think!

The main reasons I hate Christmas are:

1) "Holiday" good wishes/decorations/etc are just Christianity with most of the vocabulary stripped out, and I live in a *very* multicultural area. One year, I counted, and I had friends celebrating FIVE holidays right around then. I must admit that I'm not on very good terms with public Christianity, even if it's wearing a rubber mask, and I imagine that it's downright offensive to some people.

2) The...same...damn...Christmas...carols...over...and...over...again!
/me slams head into monitor several times
Anyone out there ever seen the Oxford Book Of Carols? There are *hundreds* of Christmas carols in it -- and those are ONLY the ones from the British Isles! So why, why, why must we hear (every time we dare to venture into a public place) an ad nauseam repetition of "Jingle Bells," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer," "O Come All Ye Faithful," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "Winter Wonderland," "Sleigh Ride," "White Christmas," and the like, over and over again?! Oh, yes, and may I also mention, for the sake of Bad Old King Henry (the VIII, who wrote the piece) that Victorian abominable bastardization known as "What Child is This," more properly known by its actual name, "Greensleeves"? (I didn't think it would be possible for anyone to commit a gross excess that would cause Henry VIII to spin in his grave, but...)

It's BORING! It's UNCREATIVE! It SUCKS!

3) The obligation. My family celebrates the Vile Holiday. I, given my druthers, would not. Nevertheless, I can't "opt out"; I have to buy (and give) the gifts, show up for the dinner, do the whole tiresome family thing (and hope that a bitter political fight doesn't start), and the whole nine yards.

4) It's an anticlimax. Society hypes Christmas so much (not so much here as where most of you are, I think) that by the time it actually gets there, I'm well and truly sick of it. I think I've been sick of Christmas for about 15 years now...

Hell, we shouldn't even be having this thread now. NO MORE talking about Christmas until AFTER American Thanksgiving, or Dec. 15th, if you can wait that long (please do)!

[mlawson]

29. I'm a Buddhist, and I hate EVERYthing to do with it!!!

I hate: winter, short days, cold weather, EVERY fucking store, bar and market closed for two days!!!; people asking me if I have "Big Plans" for xmas; xmas carols that I have heard over and over for 53 years!!!!!, destroying evergreens for NOTHING; the commercial crap on TV and radio; and above all, grownups who act like 3 year olds over it.

--- Actually, I do have plans for this next one: I am going to the beach, by MYSELF, and stay in a hotel with an oceanfront room. On the 25th, I will stay on the beach the whole day, and pay ABSOLUTELY NO ATTENTION TO IT!!!!