https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays Style Advice for Fashion Lovers en-US Thu, 30 Apr 2026 10:40:54 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/search.php https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-800645 Thu, 20 Dec 2012 19:41:07 +0000 Sylvie 800645@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>The religion I grew up in (I'm agnostic) has its major celebration earlier in the year, so we still spend a weekend together annually and have a big meal. No new clothes or gifts though and very minimal house decorations.</p> <p>We did get xmas presents/do a tree on a few of the years when I was in single digits, but now Xmas is just a day off work when everything is closed.</p> <p>I actually love the hoopla that surrounds Xmas - seeing the decorations in stores (especially NYC), lights on houses, live music on the streets and the general energy in the air when you're outside. Also, holiday parties.</p> <p>So I celebrate the run-up to Xmas but just not Xmas itself. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-800550 Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:47:49 +0000 Laurinda 800550@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>Count me is as yet another member of "Team Atheists Who Adore Christmas". </p> <p>Fun fact via Wikipedia: 'Approximately half of the 25 best-selling [USA] Christmas songs were written by Jewish composers, including "White Christmas", "Let It Snow", "Winter Wonderland," "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)," "Sleigh Ride," "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "I'll Be Home for Christmas," and "Silver Bells" '</p> <p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_music#Traditional_Christmas_carols" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....mas_carols</a> </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-800214 Thu, 20 Dec 2012 02:52:46 +0000 DeclawedJaguar 800214@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>Don't forget the feats of strength, Janet and bj! Another atheist here who appreciates mid-winter celebrations as a way to survive the depressing season. In our house it's all about the food and enjoying good company. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-800205 Thu, 20 Dec 2012 02:48:17 +0000 Janet 800205@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>bj1111 -- It is now time for the airing of grievances! </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-799797 Wed, 19 Dec 2012 19:59:22 +0000 bj1111 799797@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>ummm, festivus for the restuvus? </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-799730 Wed, 19 Dec 2012 18:17:09 +0000 Anonymous 799730@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>Count me in, I don't follow any religion. I love all the feastivities of Christmas and for years I had a difficult time feeling the need to defend my right to celebrate what ever and how ever I wanted. I am over all that now and just do what I do. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-799412 Wed, 19 Dec 2012 05:25:06 +0000 lyn* 799412@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>I am definitely a Spiritual Person Who Loves Christmas. </p> <p>I just adopt my own traditions and enjoy the time off with my family and friends I also go to church sometimes, because I enjoy singing. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-799187 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:09:22 +0000 Echo 799187@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>I have to join team Atheists who love Christmas. We are non-believers, but a mid-winter celebration is important so people don't drown in dreary, dismal weather, short days and routine. I adore all the lights and decorations and play up the Santa aspect for the kids. Any excuse to celebrate is a good excuse for me, and I am not letting non-belief stand in the way of having traditions for my kids to look back on. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798964 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:50:18 +0000 milehighstyle (Linda) 798964@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>My husband grew up with no religion and I am a non believer who grew up in a Catholic family. We celebrate Christmas, mostly because our families always did and we have a 10 year old son. To me it's a time to show love and appreciation towards others and a nice thing to look forward to in the dead of winter. We get together with my husband's extended family either the weekend before or after Christmas, but on Christmas day it's just the 3 of us. We cook and bake, open gifts and play with whatever my son gets (air hockey this year - yay!) and just enjoy a day where we don't have to be anywhere but home. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798718 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 10:44:34 +0000 ManidipaM 798718@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>Well, I come from a deeply religious pagan background in the old-fashioned sense (Hindu 'unbeliever') and then turned atheist, but I also have a neo-pagan (not quite Neo Pagan) seasons-celebrating streak. And I grew up celebrating Xmas --- the trees and Santas and plumcakes aspect of it more than the presents, which were non-existent or token --- at school (Methodist Church) and at home (Anglophile colonial hangover?). It's sort of 'traditional' for me.</p> <p>So I obviously don't celebrate Christmas in any religious sense, but you might say I celebrate the solstice/mid-winter itself as Yule. Most years I do make a point to bake and feed a 'Christmas' cake (not this time); even if I don't have a tree, I do put up lights and hang up ornaments. Again, it's the seasonal aspects of the celebration I hang on to. A few years, we've had parties with friends that involved gift giving. Mostly, however, not. </p> <p>Lots of wintry 'special foods' get cooked and bought though, right through the Advent season and up to Orthodox Christmas --- this is the norm in my hometown, where there are substantial Christian (both Eastern/Orthodox churches like the Armenian as well as Catholic and Protestant) and Jewish communities. </p> <p>In a way, at a personal level, it is not very different from ways in which I mark the vernacular harvest celebrations or the first day of spring or the time around Halloween/Diwali/Autumn Moon when many cultures seem to honour their ancestors who've passed on. There are special foods, little rituals of acknowledgement and thanksgiving and remembrance for all of these, which I see as cultural, possibly a little spiritual and not at all religious. </p> <p>it's just that at this time of year, my 'celebration' is more visible and emphatic because people around me can and do join in, and they notice my activities almost because they're expecting this sort of activity around them. Which makes it more... festive? </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798709 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 08:54:38 +0000 Louise 798709@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>Another non religious celebrater of Christmas here. We do the tree, turkey, presents etc but not for religious reasons though I do love Christmas carols x </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798598 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 03:19:36 +0000 Diana 798598@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>Me too. Christmas is always an awkward time for me because my future in laws are religious (as is my fiance but we have an understanding about this) and I am an atheist. This year I am hoping to circumvent some of this by flying out to visit my parents on Dec. 24 (J is joining me on the 26th, so he gets to do Christmassy things w/ his family but I get an out). I go to church with them only on Christmas and Easter to keep the peace most of the time.... I think I may still get roped into going to Christmas church service on the 23rd since that is Sunday, but oh well. </p> <p>I haven't done any christmas decorations for years now, but I do like them. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798541 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 01:38:27 +0000 Anonymous 798541@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>What Elisabeth said. I was born in Britain but lived in Canada since I was two, maybe it's an island thing.</p> <p>I work in Toronto for a large company which seems to go out of its way not to say the word Christmas. But my fellow co-workers and I kind of take all the best bits of all our religions and mash them together. We are going out this week for a Christmas/eid/kawanza/hanukkah drink and chat about our traditions and families. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798511 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:51:12 +0000 Nanabear 798511@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>*raises hand* I should probably join Elisabeth on the Team Atheists Who Adore Christmas.</p> <p>My entire family is atheist but we like to join in on the festive feel. We have a nice dinner at home and go do some shopping as a family. I have casual gift exchanges with friends. We view Christmas as a holiday instead of a religious occasion, and I love Christmas! </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798496 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:37:14 +0000 Angie 798496@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>This post will be re-posted in the Off Topic part of the site. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798483 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:25:19 +0000 Janet 798483@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>We celebrate pretty secularly too. Decorating, festive meals and parties, etc. But no worship services or anything if that sort. </p> <p>Both hubs and I were raised Methodist but neither of our families attended church regularly when we were growing up. My dad was a non-practicing Catholic for most of his life (his marrying my non-Catholic mom didn't thrill his family, so I was aware from a very young age how divisive organized religion can be). My mom was a woman of deep faith, but very private with it -- she didn't care much for church, but her bible is heavily bookmarked and well-worn. </p> <p>Over the years, I've attended all kinds of religious services, some with friends and boyfriends, some (like Quaker and Unitarian) to satisfy my own curiosity. But neither hubs nor I are drawn to any particular faith -- I'd say we're spiritual rather than religious. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798452 Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:03:52 +0000 Aziraphale 798452@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>I am on Team Atheists Who Adore Christmas. Is that a thing? It should be.</p> <p>I'm of British descent. The British Isles have always had a celebration of some sort right around the winter solstice, even before the Christian religion was a thing, and there's a good reason for that. I firmly believe that it does us all good to celebrate love, life, peace, family and friendship at the darkest time of the year. </p> <p>Our family loves Christmas. We decorate lavishly, we visit family and friends, we play Christmas carols and we exchange gifts on Christmas morning. We only call it Christmas because that's what it's traditionally called, though. We could just as easily call it Yule, or the Midwinter Festival, although people would look at us weird if we did that. So we just go with Christmas. What I mean is, we don't belong to the Christian faith (although it would be silly to pretend we're not a part of the Judeo-Christian culture), and so the religious bits are sort of peripheral and, for us, irrelevant. My kids know the baby Jesus story, of course, and we even have a Playmobil nativity scene, but we don't attend church, I don't use words like "sacred" or "miracle", and the Bible and I don't really get along because we disagree about the details (including the minor detail that I have trouble with the whole concept of there being any such thing as a god). But the general message of peace and love, and the spirit of Christmas, is something I can get on board with. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798436 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:50:51 +0000 Vildy 798436@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>It's more with me that I don't feel the pull to do anything ceremonious. Maybe if I were part of a big family. I'm Jewish and I didn't even light the menorah even though I had candles!<br /> Didn't make any latkas or jelly donuts, either: equally opportunity non-celebrating ashkenazic and sephardic traditions. I also don't do seders, though I have in the past.<br /> I don't attend services, though I used to daily and might still if there were anything nearby.<br /> I used to go to the Baptist church for awhile because I thought Pastor Mary was a good rabbi. So I like services but I don't like customs and traditions much. Or sitting still for long meals. Or doing things by deadlines. We don't even do anything about birthdays and anniversaries, etc, here. I don't object but since a lot of this falls to the woman still, the guys are s.o.l. there. I don't send out cards, though I have in some past years when I find one droll enough. Since I don't really like shopping, that isn't real likely.</p> <p>My husband gave a small gift to a co-worker friend and had to wrap it in aluminum foil and I gave him a piece of green fabric scrap that had a design with red pinwheel motifs for ribbon. </p> <p>I may bake a cranberry orange loaf and a lemon loaf for son's girlfriend's family since she is sending us Christmas cookies she baked. Had to flog self to commit to buying ingredients today. </p> <p>I did used to love holidays at former boyfriend's family where they made elaborate meals of traditional foods, like for Thanksgiving, and then it all sat uneaten while everybody ate the alternative Italian meal and then I played bocce with Grandpa. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798430 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:43:35 +0000 catgirl 798430@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>We are non-religious and pan-relgious. We celebrated Diwali and Hannukah, now our Christmas tree is up, and post-Christmas will be doing Kwanzaa with my nephews visiting from NY. It's kind of fun and inclusive - although there is no particular religious aspect to any of it, it's more about secular thankfulness and respect and kindness.</p> <p>Hope no one is offended by that. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798418 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:33:13 +0000 bj1111 798418@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>i'm an ethnic catholic (i grew up in the faith but i like it more for the pomp rather than the theology) so we do christmas tree trimming because we like to have parties and having people over to hang stuff on an evergreen is as good a reason as any. if we were ethnically jewish, we would have hanukkah parties and have people light a bunch of candles. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798403 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:14:56 +0000 Mo 798403@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>I should add that we have no children and so the gift buying is down to just one or two things for the SO and maybe a gift for either mom depending on budget. I stopped doing cards years ago. I think my whole family understands it's my busiest time at work all year. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798401 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:11:45 +0000 texstyle 798401@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>We don't do any religious focused celebration. For me it's more like a winter holiday season. It's still fun to decorate a little and get together with friends and share food and fun, but we don't really do gifting (unless you count food). </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798391 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:02:16 +0000 Caro in Oz 798391@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>No religious celebrations for us either. It's summer here so we don't even do the traditional Christmas dinner. We used to exchange presents but lately we have stopped buying for all the adults. We now put the money into a "travel fund" &amp; we go on holidays together instead. The grandson still gets gifts though:) </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798382 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 22:55:07 +0000 marianna 798382@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>Me! I am ethnically Jewish but totally not religious so our Chanukah "celebration" consisted of eating latkes one night for dinner. We will be gathering on Dec 25th with my husband's family to eat and exchange gifts, but there's no religious aspect to any of it at all. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798376 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 22:53:58 +0000 deb 798376@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>I qualify!. We do a gift exchange because it is the only time the whole family gets together, but it is not religous in any way. And Santa comes for the little ones but the hubster and I stay home for a quiet day just the two of us. We have found this give our kids time with their little ones and less pressure to have to include us on Christmas day. We do stockings with our kids, grandkids and their spouses/girlfriend or boyfriends a week before Christmas day. We go to my folks on Christmas Eve which is a family tradition and my daughter and I do something for dinner there. This give my folks the opportunity to have their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren all together at the same time. We have done this for years now and it works really well for out family. This may be more than what you are speaking about, though. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798375 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 22:53:41 +0000 Mo 798375@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>We did Christmas when I was a kid, and my stepmom actually was in the convent for 3 years but never became a nun - but we never had a religious theme or tone to our celebration.<br /> Now I don't put up a tree because I work the holiday and cats like to climb and bat at everything on it. As you can see from my profile pic, this year we have a Christmas pig from the BF's sister. I string lights sometimes for the festive feel as you do. </p> https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/topic/anyone-else-here-nonreligious-for-the-holidays#post-798364 Mon, 17 Dec 2012 22:45:27 +0000 ironkurtin 798364@https://youlookfab.com/welookfab/ <p>I grew up in a nonreligious household, so we don't really celebrate Xmas, Channukah, or Kwanzaa. We do get some kind of fir tree ornament because I love the smell, and put up lights because they are pretty - I have a kid, so the bells and whistles are on! We spend some nice family time together, but there's nothing denominational about our celebration at all.</p> <p>I know the YLF community spans many countries and traditions. Anyone else sitting this winter holiday season out, or on the bench? </p>