I must confess something... I love Christmas time

[stahbrett]

I'm certain it's because I was brought up celebrating Christmas, but I love most of the songs, seeing old friends and relatives, and the whole Santa stuff with the kids. Any other non-believers feel similarly?

[PassingFair]

1. Milk of Human Kindness and all that.

I LOVE Christmas.

I love the giving and the receiving.

Peace on earth, goodwill towards women and men.

[laconicsax]

2. Not I.

I was sort of raised Jewish and as each year came along, I felt more and more oppressed. Being constantly inundated by Christmas this and Christmas that, having to listen to the same 'holiday' songs about date-rape and pagan rituals wherever I went, being asked by every single acquaintance if I was doing anything special for Christmas or if I got anything cool for Christmas. Not having a TV for the last two years has really helped take the edge off, but no, I don't get any warm fuzzies about the 'holiday season.'

[awoke_in_2003]

17. You should have said...

"Went on Christmas break and all I got was this stupid dreidel" :)

Eric Cartman Lyrics (youtube pulled the video):

I've got a little dreidel
It's small and made of clay
But I'm not gonna play with it
'Cause dreidel's freakin gay

[onager]

3. The upbringing got me, too.

It didn't help that my mother is one of those stone Xmas freaks. Clark Griswold has got NOTHING on her. She has been known to decorate the yard with not one, but TWO large sleigh/Santa/reindeer ensembles.

Damn genetics. Maybe that explains why, during the last Xmas before I moved to Egypt, I was driving around Los Angeles on Xmas Eve in 80-degree weather, with the top down and a damn Santa hat on my head. (When little kids yelled at me, I told them I was a very large elf.)

So yes, I get right into this stuff. I got a touching email from an old friend a few days ago. He said when this time of year rolls around, he starts thinking just like my mother: i.e., he wonders if I'm coming home. (Yes, I plan to!!!)

And I have GOT to get some pictures of this store not far from my apartment. It has two life-size Santas flanking the front door, lots of Xmas lights, tinsel, and a Xmas tree in the window.

This is in Alexandria, Egypt. Where 95% of the population is Muslim, and the largest Xian denomination (the Copts) don't celebrate Xmas until January 8.

The madness is spreading...

[charlie]

7. Yes! I'd like to see that pic

I loved Christmases in Japan. It's cargo cult emulation with none of the underlying guff. You get the pageantry -- stores, streets, trees, and lampposts festooned with tinsel, lights, holly... the usual -- and it's all imbued with golden-hued feelings of coziness, fun, family, peace, and contentment. No Jesii, but plenty of Santas eveywhere. And Christmas is the day you enjoy Christmas Cake, a fancy confection ordered for the occasion.

(Christmas Cake has become enough of a tradition that it's already lent itself to an ugly slang. A Christmas Cake is also a single woman older than 25... past her sell-date for marriage).

[cosmik debris]

4. It always reminds me of what it was like to be poor.

When you get shoes and fruit for christmas and your friends get bicycles and toy trains, you don't think of christmas in the same way.

[Evoman]

22. Amen.

I was so fucking poor that there where Christmases where I got nothing but a sweater. One year I got some socks and underwear. It got worse when we got low income housing in a better part of town...the rest of the kids in my school were getting stereos and whole sets of action figures.

One kid got some hundred dollar shoes for christmas and I got some cheap 15 dollars sneakers...asshole made fun of me. I got so upset I broke his nose and came close to breaking his arm.

Man, I was a horrible kid.....

[lizerdbits]

5. I do

I like listening to the music while making cookies for goodie bags. I also like all those old holiday specials (especially Year Without a Santa Claus with the Heat Miser and Snow Miser). It's the 'how I grew up' thing I think, it brings back good memories.

[salvorhardin]

8. To this day I can't get enough of the Grinch and the Burgermeister Meisterburger

Fun fact: The Burgermeister Meisterburger was voiced by the same guy, Paul Frees, who did Boris Badenov in Rocky and Bulwinkle.

[charlie]

10. And Yukon Cornelius

Bumbles bounce!

[awoke_in_2003]

18. For all the Rudolph fans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-5yFNpNbSc

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. It's fun as fuck.

If you ask me, the secular world succeeded in wrestling that holiday away from the Christians, just as they did from the Pagans.

[ihavenobias]

9. Me too. Secular Christmas rocks.

My GF and I are non-theists but we had a blast decorating the tree yesterday while burning pine incense (no, I don't normally burn incense, not that it matters).

Hell, I'm a sucker for seasonal stuff, and the fact that I have a sweet girlfriend gives me an excuse to decorate (for Halloween, for Christmas, etc.).

Oh, and I think Christmas lights are beautiful, especially with a backdrop of snow. And secular Christmas songs like Jingle Bell Rock are awesome.

But since I live in Chicago and despise dark and cold more and more each year, I resent the months of January and February. They are, by far, the two worst months of the year. You wake up and it's dark and you come home from work and it's dark. The high temperature is misleading because you're at work when it's there, so you're subjected to brutal snow, wind, ice and darkness.

[progressoid]

11. I've been a scrooge for 20+ years but

Not entirely sure why, but I've been getting less scroogy of late.

[trotsky]

12. I actually enjoy Solstice time more as a non-believer than I did as a Christian.

Because, coincidentally, my favorite parts of "Christmas" had nothing to do with the few Christian elements within. Trees, gifts, food, family, parties, you name it - all predate the Christians co-opting the holiday. Now I can focus on all of those and not have to worry about getting to church or showing proper "respect" for little baby Jeebus.

[immoderate]

13. My rule: I will attend any observance where the food is good.

Growing up Jewish inoculated me against any religious feelings for Christmas, but my first 45 years in New York, I appreciated all the lights. The music is OK if you stick to the jazz versions of holiday songs.

Parties are always good. :headbang:

--IMM

[ozone_man]

14. Let me get past Thanksgiving first!

I'm one of those people who enjoys one holiday at a time. I don't think of Christmas until two weeks before.

Anyway, I like both of both holidays quite a lot. Christmas has been downsizing at our house with the kids getting older, but the tree, lights, music, and candles, etc., are a ritual that we enjoy. The gift giving is toned down now, but that's a change for the better, making it a less commercial holiday, while preserving the spiritual aspects.

[sarcasmo]

15. As a life long non believer I can't agree with you. The first part of the word makes me not like the

Holiday. Thanksgiving is bad enough, but least the word Christ isn't in that, being a Cherokee Indian I ask my sister every Thanksgiving why we are celebrating, she says it's for Mom, LOL.

[cynatnite]

16. I start out scroogy, but then I wimp out...

Put up the tree, get Xmas decorations out in the yard, listen to Xmas music and all that. Even the religious Xmas music I love. It just all feels good and I ge suckered in every year. I enjoy myself enough that I don't care. :)

[awoke_in_2003]

19. I agree with the music...

as long as it isn't 24/7. I also listen to the Elvis gospel songs every once and a while. My mother loved them.

[onager]

21. My mother does too!

She loves Everything Elvis. She does not, thankfully, have a picture of him on black velvet. But she does have a handkerchief he tossed at one of his concerts. Maybe she's hoping it contains Elvis DNA and he can be cloned.

One of my favorite Elvis Xmas song is DECIDEDLY secular and non-gospel:

Hang up your pretty stockings,
Turn out the lights,
Santa Claus is coming down your chimney tonight...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

20. I love it too!

I have always done the totally secular thing.

Love cooking the food, decorating, putting up lights and all that good stuff.

I think that the present buying is ridiculous. We have a messed up economy if we have to have a mass buying frenzy every December to keep the economy going.

[Evoman]

23. The only thing I like about christmas are the days off and getting together with family.

Otherwise, I think it's fucking stupid. I get near homicidal when people try to fill me with christmas spirit.