As an atheist, the winter holiday season is about the celebrating the warmth and love of friends and family.

It's a reminder that the days are getting longer.

Christmas to me means chaos in the shops, when I need to go and buy milk or bread and all those people jostling about buying way too much food, just as if suddenly at Christmas they are going to eat more than any other day of the year.
It is the screaming kids with parents who will not parent I hate the noise and some of the Christmas music gets on my nerves occasionally, after hearing the same tune for the, I don't know 20th - 30th time, I want to puke.
It means having to arrange a get together with my family which I do enjoy even though a lot of times we have a tiff amongst each other which after wards we all laugh about.
I love Christmas decorations but have so many in boxes and most of the time cannot be bothered putting them up, after all we usually spend Christmas not at my place. Where I live Christmas is a hot affair, it may be up to 40C (104F) or more and all we want is a nice shower but of course it doesn't happen.
The so called religious aspect of Christmas doens't bother me one bit, where I live most people don't care for it at all, not like the US where one has to be careful of what one's says about Christ.

For me, it's just something to be "gotten through".
I really don't enjoy it. Most people I know get totally stressed out over it, for one reason or another. Usually, it's not having enough money to waste on junk no one really needs.
Or having to spend time cooking for family gatherings with people you normally don't associate with the rest of the year.

If I could, I'd avoid it altogether. Since I can't, I'll slap a smile on my face and get through it.

Happy bright decorations at a Very grey time of year! Lots of parties and fun events! Cool special foods! Aaannd thg he days getting longer! What's not to like?!

Christmas means that for a couple months a year I don't exist on TV, in public displays, in shops, in schools, anywhere. I was raised a secular Jew and I get wished merry Christmas, inundated with christmas music and movies, blinded with red and green and called a scrooge if I'm not into it and subject to attempted persuasion that Christmas is a holiday for everyone, not just Christians, and I should just lie back and enjoy it. Meanwhile there is no me-surrogate anywhere. If by some chance there is a Jewish on TV, s/he is gamely celebrating Christmas, as if to prove it's as secular as everyone says, despite the diligent attempts by some to put the "christ" back into it. Never mind that I am an atheist and am inundated, as are we all, with god stuff year round. This is way more intense, at least for me. I hate it. I hate Christmas. There. I said it.

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I work in retail so the run up to christmas can be annoying but i do enjoy it a bit a few drinks with friends a meal out last daturday in london with some of the members of a face book group i belong to. As i live on my own i will just have a trip to the pub on the day and a meal at home.

I grew up in a house where my mother considered herself religious because "all good people are Christians" so she claimed she was one too. I guess around 3 times we went to church for a few Sundays then forgot about it for a few years and religion was never discussed in our house.

We were, however, an all American family and, as such, we celebrated Christmas with a Christmas tree and gifts on Christmas day. There were Christmas decorations in the house and some Christmas lights on the exterior of the house. It was a great time of year but there was virtually no religion involved.

My kids are grown now and I have a grandson and we all get together and do gifts Christmas day and have a big dinner that night and drink wine and everybody spends the night. We are all atheists and we have a great time.

My wife and I don't get a tree or decorate but my atheist daughter-in-law can't bear to forgo the Christmas tree decorations. She wants there is be a Christmas (with no Jesus) for her son so that's what we do. She is a wonderful person who I love dearly and am happy to indulge her. You can call it a winter solstice celebration or even Christmas. I don't care.

Family and friends

Party time, gimme my booze

Christmas, like all other major celebrations is just a money grab. The major corporations put out ads to make you feel guilty if you don't one-up others in buying presents for others.

I get my grandson a pizza gift card (it's been a tradition since he asked me to get him pizza for Christmas), and something simple. When I get my children something, I usually get it for them after Christmas. This Christmas though I'm driving to Wichita, KS to see my grandson.

It a time for my family to get together, feast and exchange gifts. I am very, very lucky to be part of a clan that set aside pettiness, dysfunction, and differences and just spend the time loving one another. It truly feels almost magical, healing, and uplifting. It seems to reboot us all for the year.

I look on it more as a seasonal holiday, a chance to be a little more social and less frazzled. I don't care much for the commercial side, I like my Christmas simple and relaxing.

I am moved by your post. It tells of a good person., someone who is capable of self examination -humility, who is fair, filled with appreciation for the gifts of life - gratitude. You set an example to live up to. It goes deep. I wish you joy.

It's the one time of year that family and friends take off from work to gather, usually with good food, and sometimes with gifts, to celebrate life and each other.

Whilst Christmas does have meaning for me, it is not religious. Even when I was religious, the most religious part of the holiday was a creche, Advent and an occasional Midnight Mass so I might sing carols.

The meaning Christmas has for me is centered around tradition. My mother's traditions, combined with my late husband's and my children's, have created a feeling centered around December that cannot be denied. From the time I was a small child, I have loved the festive lights, the foods, the generosity that accompany the season. As it has begun to center more and more around consumerism, I keep my celebration restricted to what I love...lights, food, generosity.

I love preparing for a month of a gift every day for my daughters. I never spend a lot, I collect the presents throughout the year. But the joy it brings me to envision their delight opening each day of Christmas is amazing. I also love being the office secret santa...finding a present that fits the personality of my team members and watching their enjoyment as they wonder who the benefactor is just lovely.

I love baking and I do so from Thanksgiving to Easter. My office especially appreciates it LOL! I have my twinkling lights stashed in different places, including a small white "branch" tree, more like an aspen than a pine, whose branch ends are lighted, year round.

So perhaps what Christmas means to me is a feeling that I try to keep around me year round, brought from my childhood more than from a church.

I love Christmas. Mostly for the lights and decorations. It's a bright moment in the darkest days of the year. It's such a wonderful way to spend the darkness... with colorful lights. I don't have a close family, so that's never been important to me. I love the look of wrapped presents under the tree, but I've never been big on the whole gift buy/giving thing so I like to wrap boxes and make them look like presents.

I also love the ideas and stories that Christmas brings out in us. A time of peace, of love, of taking care of each other. This is something I would like to see spread throughout the year, it is the one time humans consider our higher "angels" as opposed to our darker selves. We created it, but I think that's a good thing. I wish we could create more holidays like this, where we celebrate what's best about us, even in the darkest of times.

I reflect on the past at this time of year and how dumb we all were about it at one time but still it was fun. I'm quick to point out to those so wrapped up in it that it does not mean what you think it does. A relative in Houston who has drank the current GOP koolaide just posted in Facebook that you have to say "Merry Christmas" and she wants it passed on. I quickly reminded her of the time Bing Crosby sang "Happy Holidays" in one of his movies in 1942. I'm sure he was also able to say "Merry Christmas" as well.

For me, it's just a day off with pay. Nothing more and nothing less.

I have been asked why I continue to decorate the house to the max each Christmas when it's just the two of us.....and I have to admit that its because once its done and I see everything lit up each evening....well, it's the thing that separates this time of the year from all the rest. It's peaceful....and pretty.....and has nothing to do with religion or the commercialism of the season. All the years I worked - I looked forward to Christmas because it would give me a few days off to spend however I chose....to be with family and friends.

I love the decorations, they cheer me up during the cold dark winters. I like the winter solstice and celebrating the longest night, and thus the future coming of summer!
Also I like to spend some time on reflection and direction and make sure I still think I’m on the right track and still have the same goals.
( of course in Aus I like sitting in the pool, catching up with mates and sipping mojitos. Oh and trays of mangoes, but I’m not there this year ).

Christmas is just a reminder I can't have eggnog, drink alcohol, or make wassail, on account of my Diabetes.

I keep up the food traditions, dishes that my mom used to make, and recently stuff that my kids miss now that they have flown the coop. We are all atheists, though my ex-wife and daughter still indulge in a little woo from the far east. That's ok. We still exchange presents, it's a nice tradition. But I don't do a tree, decorations, xmas cards, ugly sweaters, or lights. It's a solstice celebration at my place, and I don't kick up too much of a fuss at xmas parties, concentrating on the food and the booze. Works for me.

Going out for Chinese food and a movie after