I’m a horrible atheist, I flipping love Christmas! I’m putting up my tree this weekend.

I celebrate any fun uplifting holiday without counting the religious part of it.

Hang Christmas stockings I made for my daughter and her husband. Decorate with dolls made by my great aunts and uncles.

Set up a lighted village on the table. Make cranberry-apple chutney as gifts for friends and family.

Wrap presents, make a nice dinner, and celebrate with my daughter and her husband.

Since age 13, I have been an atheist. I celebrate the Winter Solstice. For me, Christmas is a time for winter cheer with family and friends.

I don't celebrate Xmas much, but I like this joke:

"Celebrating Xmas without believing in god is like having sex without wanting children. You do it because it's fun!"

I like the lights.

I eat.

When there's all that food around, little else matters to me.

I enjoy a tree with lights aglow, holiday music, and people acting a little bit nicer . But I also feel loneliness and loss in the holiday season. It’s a challenge and a struggle. I fight to keep the good moments on top and sorrow at bay.

I love Christmas! I like pointing out that it is a pagan holiday and many are surprised by this. So I don't feel apprehensive about the holidays at all.

I celebrate the reason for the season(s), axial tilt. I figure the best way to do this is to drink copious amount of alcohol until I, like the earth, start to tilt and end up more or less wandering around in an oblong-ish circle, orbiting some larger mass like a couch, TV, table full of food/drink. Also, makes me a bit jolly.

I celebrate the Winter Solstice as it was intended. It’s the darkest (shortest) days of the year and early humans made up celebrations to get them through it. Yule log, decorated trees, lights, songs, drinks, evergreens, presents, all to distract from the darkness. Religions of the book try to steal the season from the pagans but I don’t let them. I say happy winter solstice or happy holidays. If someone gives me christian bullshit about it, I ask where in the Bible does it talk about decorating a tree and drinking eggnog?

Fun family time. Nothing more.

I enjoy the holiday season. That time from Thanksgiving through NYD. The friendship and goodwill that it provides even though it probably isn’t real. The decorations and music ,non religious of course, puts a smile on my face. Christmas was special growing up. It was not about Jesus. It was about family get togethers.
Of course Festivus is special too.

share gifts, food, and time, The winter solstice has been celebrated for at least 10,000 years, a few days earlier or later is irrelevant. We actually don't celebrate any holiday, it's just the time when people have time off so we take advantage.

I've been celebrating it as a mismash of holidays forever.... Originally the Christian one - than we added some Hanukkah for an inlaw.... than I had friends who were into Solstice...

Now for me it's just about seeing family and enjoying their company - a great excuse for us all to get together - which we seldom do as we get older and everyone lives in different States.

Being in a warm climate helps. Since I seldom go to malls I just ignore the maniacal commercialism.

Eat too much, drink too much, spend too much on the grandkids, hug my family a lot and just have a great time. You say there's some religious component? God bless the cook!

I celebrate Saturnalia..simple.

I deal with it with by listening to the Transiberian Orchestra, mint fudge, repeat viewings of Nightmare Before Christmas & The Grinch, & lots of eggnog!

We call it, "A tradition" and a good reason to get the family (what's left of it) together. Nobody bakes a birthday cake for Jesus.

I ignore the religious mythology. I do participate in gift exchanges and enjoy time with the family. If anyone starts a discussion on the mythology side of it, I excuse myself and go to the bathroom.

A neighbor has a bonfire on winter solstice for people to burn shit from the previous year and drink his home brew (good stuff). If I manage to see family or some other event for Xmas, then alcohol is involved.

I look at it as a family day, like Thanksgiving but with presents instead of food. I enjoy Christmas music, even the songs with religious lyrics; I just enjoy the melody and the memories rather than giving any weight to references to "Christ" or "angels"

the same way i dealt with it before i was an atheist, since i am jewish: i feel isolated, i feel inundated, i feel put-upon, and i hate it. it makes the world assume i am a happy christian and fond of red and green. it makes the world assume that christmas is for everyone, oh it's not a religious holiday, wait, let's put the christ back in christmas -- how does THAT dichotomy work? i want to sleep for a couple months. i want to go out and torment a reindeer. it makes me want to rip apart a vermont teddy bear. it makes me want to shove a tree up someone's ass.

g

I just ignore the religious aspect of the holiday and focus on the good stuff: food, presents, money, liquor and spiked eggnog, friends & family whether they are religious or not. When I'm forced to deal with the religious aspect of the season, I do say "happy holidays" to everyone whether they like it or not. Most Christians try to forcibly correct me and insist that I say to them Merry Christmas, but I just continue to say Happy Holidays to them and they go away.

I partake in the festival of Saturnalia