How do atheists and non-religious celebrate christmas

Free stuff? Lots of food? I'm in.
Since schools are generally closed around Christmas, it's a good time to see relatives.

 

Are you saying there's a religious element to christmas? I had no idea... Dec 25 was a pagan holiday first, so all good. It's just trees, decorations, presents, and company to me. That's quite good enough.

 

I personally don't like xmas that much, mostly because of the fake personalities people put on and the overplayed jingle bellsy music. As a result, I usually don't "celebrate" it, rather I just try to surround myself with people I like and be happy. It's just another day really, though I love the winter time! Snow makes me happy

 

I usually go out killing babies and burning down old people homes since I'm an atheist and therefore have no morals...

No but seriously I celebrate it just like any other atheist family in Sweden has since ancient times. Originally "christmas" (as I don't like to call it) wasn't a christian holiday. The christians made it christian.

Fun fact: In Sweden we don't call Christmas just that, we call it "Jul" (believed to originate from a sacrificial holiday, ante christian times). Also mid-winter solstice. I'd rather celebrate that but the birth of a "prophet" which I don't care at all for, rather despise... Which is actually what I do, now that I think about it.

 

My family celebrates it like most other people, we just don't go to church. We decorate the house and go to see other peoples lights, sometimes even the churches lights! We have friends and famiky over for lunch and just hang out and catch up with family. Even though we're not religiouse we kiked going to the local nativity fair, then we moved towns and so we're looking for a new nativity fair.

 

I love Sweden and the cultural (at least everything I've heard...all the way back to Queen Christina). How long has Sweden been considered predominately athiestic?

 

This, sans gifts. I never got the whole gift-giving thing.

This year we don't even have the family meal at christmas but a few days after, because that was easier to arrange for everyone. I decided to go work at christmas, cause I can use the extra few bucks.

So yeah I don't care about christmas at all and it's not like I celebrate anything

---------- Post added 10th Dec 2013 at 05:42 PM ----------

:lol:

 

I celebrate Christmas as I wanted it as a child- with it all being about Santa! My son is lucky to be religion-free. I disliked going to church my whole life.

 

I'm pretty much agnostic (agnostically Christian/spiritual....somewhere along those lines, as I say it) but I think that Christmas isn't all about religion. Yes, yes, it's supposed to be about Jesus, but hey, why can't we take it and make it about giving, about getting together with your friends, and putting together an awesome Christmas tree?

 

I will take joy in seeing my siblings, and giving and receiving presents, and general festive cheer. This will be my first Christmas as an atheist, and I hope to celebrate it like Tim Minchin except without the Australian part (it's a really touching song, whatever your religious views):

[youtube]fCNvZqpa-7Q[/youtube]

Some nonreligious people choose not to celebrate Christmas at all, and that's absolutely fine. We don't need to obey any one way of celebrating it.

 

100% Atheist. Immediate family is also %100 Atheist. Extended family are either Atheist, Agnostic or Christian. And we all celebrate Christmas in the exact same way. First, my family has a massive Christmas tree (real) that is impressively weighed down with tinsel and baubles. We put presents to and from the family underneath. We don't open them until Christmas morning. When my brother and I were young, "Father Christmas" would leave presents under the tree for us, in addition to the ones from Mum and Dad... supposedly . After family present openings, we all have a massive roast lunch featuring a large turkey or goose, potatoes, cauliflower, pumpkin and all those things finishing with traditional Christmas pudding. Then we'd laugh, eat, socialize, examine our gifts and have a jolly, happy day!

 

I'm a practicing Muslim so I don't really celebrate Christmas on my own. Meaning if a friend is having a Christmas party or something I'll go but otherwise I just stay home, drink hot chocolate and watch something or another I see the holiday season kind of as a way to just enjoy winter in general.

 

I like celebrating Christmas and many of the traditions. Being an atheist, I don't really reference God or Jesus or any other biblical figure. I guess it's always been more about family, love, and of course a few gifts

I have family members who are Christian and certainly see Christmas in a more religious light, and honestly I don't mind. To each his own.

 

Well some of my family is religious, I'm not
So pretty much Christmas - all religious beliefs.
So food, presents, family (unfortunately)
I'd rather just spend the day with my pets doing noticing but I'm forced to go

 

I don't know if my family is very religious I think traditions plays a larger role than Jesus.
In the evening I will be going my parents house to dine with my family and lighting canles at the cemetary. After dinner I will be going to my brothers place to have pancakes and potatoes while watching TED talks and dissections of the brain. - Best way to avoid getting presents and having to dance around a tree.

 

I'm Atheist to the core, but my immediate family (the ones I spend holidays with) is christian. Thankfully, we spend it with a bearable minimum of religion. I get dragged (sometimes literally) to church christmas eve, we have dinner at a chinese restaurant, then on christmas teh fam. comes over and we have dinner with a short prayer before. Other than that, we pretty much focus on the gift giving side of the holiday.

 

I only celebrated one Christmas as an atheist/agnostic, I have since returned to my faith. My family for the most part are Christians, though I am not 100% about all. But even then I celebrated it similar to how I celebrate now. I have never gone to a Christmas Eve service and do not plan on it anytime soon. I have some issues with my home church, but that is a story for another time. The main thing that I did differently was that, since I was not attending church, and had been for a few years, I did not attend any advent services.

My family opens presents, then we used to go to my Mom's, but I do not know what we are doing this year, (she passed in January) and have a big feast which we start with a prayer. One of the few times we say grace a year, mainly Thanksgiving and Christmas and some times Easter, but I haven't celebrated Easter with my family in 5 years, the first 4 I was away at school and celebrated at the pastor's house and last year, my family just didn't celebrate it, we went for breakfast the day before instead.

After dinner, we all take a nap and later watch football and Christmas movies. Then we go to my Grandma's either the day before, day of, or the day after. We used to go to my Mom's the day after as well for my little Brother's birthday, but again I do not know what we are doing about that.

Christmas is more of a time for my family to celebrate being together. We have not spent as much time together thanks my one brother moving 2/3 hours away and one of my other brothers, sister and I going to college and later graduate school for myself. My brother and sister are no longer in college, but I still am. I am in my last year of graduate school. For the last 6 years I have spent on average 9/10 months out of year year away from my family, so Christmas is a time to celebrate us all being together.

 

We do all the normal family things, but without the church. We decorate the tree, open presents, and we go to my aunt's house for a big Christmas dinner.

One tradition we have that is kind of abnormal is that every Christmas eve, my older sister, my parents, and me all sit around the tree and watch the Woodland Critters Christmas episode of South Park.

My dad is actually rather anti-religion. But that's no reason not to take the time to preach love, giving, and kindness. Christmas is more about love to us than anything else.

 

I'm an agnostic. The way I look at it, Christmas comes when it's harsh, dark and cold. The lack of adequate warmth and sunlight has a bad influence on my psyche. It makes sense, then, that I'd want to be with my family setting up lights, making warm food, giving each other stuff, and staying comfortable until the longest night passes.

Since I live in an agnostic household, there has never been a pressure to do Christian things, which to us really only include going to church, watching religious stuff on tv, or taking the Baby Jesus story seriously. Hell, we even have a miniature nativity set as part of our decorations, but to us they're just ornaments.

It's also fun to note that the Japanese celebrate Christmas Eve as a romantic holiday filled with fried chicken. I guess Christmas is what you make of it, at the end of the day.

 

My family are not religious and have such never celebrated Christmas as a religious time. Like many on here we have used it as a time of giving, watching films together, playing games, good food and spending time together. We're a very close family so we tend to do this most of the year anyway...so it is just christmas-related films and actually wrapping the things we pick up for each other that make the difference.