I don't care what holiday is it, as long as you make it an official holiday that has legally mandated paid time off... 😏

Saturnalia Gang rise up! Our time is now!

I'll be your new person to meet for today.

I'm spiritual but still atheist and my family has been agnostic atheist for 3 generations. Back in the 80's my grandfather started celebrating the winter solstice because he wasn't happy celebrating holidays for a religion he didn't agree with. He picked it because it's the longest night in the year and that's a good reason to give a gift.

40 something years later, I'm raising my kid to celebrate the solstices and the equinoxes. Winter is a quite calibration of your closest people and you exchange gifts that will help them through the next year. During summer it's a celebration of the people you know and everyone gets together and brings everyone they know to eat and party with the goal of meeting some one new. Both equinox are a celebration of the community and we go out to do community service.

That's 4 generations of non Cristian celebration.

Eh, whatever religious significance it ever had in the West is long gone, but it's still a nice occasion to meet up with family, break bread and share gifts. I'm not much for rites and celebrations, to a point my wife hates, but I see the value of it (and in sharing with your loved ones, ofc) even if it's completely separate from religion.

Christmas is now a secular holiday. It was here before Christians anyway.

funny, you say you are upset with society and yet you live in one

How can you be sure?

When you meet someone you judge to be loud and outspoken in their atheism, do you add them to a list, find out where they live, and then spend your Christmas checking what ever one of them is doing on that day?

eyup. they are all over that christian stuff with the yule log and mistletoe and decroting a tree and being visited by a magical elf lord and having all the holi on the day of christs birth that we all know vaguely coincides with the winter solcstice. so wierd that even though they don't believe in god they celebrate not just one god but many. Just like the deeply christian japanese are so into it.

Now you have.

Christmas can - and I simply can't over-stress this - fuck right off.

Pro tip: talk to child-free people estranged from their parents and/or siblings. High chance they want nothing to do with any of it, likely because it dredges up unpleasant memories (which frankly stand a good chance of also being the source of their eschewing of religion).

Rather than having to buy gifts other people don't want, and pretend to be happy about receiving the same, I just buy the things I want when I want them, and encourage those around me to do the same.

I will add that it's not helped by living in the southern hemisphere, where a bunch of misguided people insist on emulating northern hemisphere traditions, making everyone around them miserable by serving a three-course roast dinner in the height of summer.

I'm not loud and outspoken, but I don't really celebrate. Though in my case I grew up JW so I never had the habit. I've heard arguments from outspoken atheists that religion doesn't get to claim holidays, because you don't have ro believe in something to enjoy the festive aspects, plus those holidays were stolen or merged from various religions anyway.

Just about every culture has a winter celebration. Religious or not, a large portion of the population is struggling in the cold. The party around the solstice gives a distinct turning point in the year as the days get longer. So why not take advantage of the existing merch, the existing day off work, and the spirit of your friends and family and partake? Going with the flow and pretending to celebrate a holiday in a religion you think is fake anyway is easier than having the same conversation over and over with family. And don't underestimate the power of marketing, consumerism, and the lingering imperialism. I've been to India and many people expressed their wish to visit New York City at Christmas. It permeates local culture, it broadcasts globally.

As others have said, you're showing a small world view and admitting your sample is small. Christianity creates atheists that celebrate Christmas. Judaism, hannukah. Modern non-religious cultural holidays, the new year. Traditional religions, some combo of the solstice and moon phase. Even those of other faiths that live in areas dominated by Christianity celebrate Christmas, heathens and pagans alike.

Nobody gonna turn down a day off

I don't most years, unless a friend really wants to do something with me for it in which case I might go along for their benefit. Not really a holiday person in general though.

I've never met an Asatru who wasn't a Norwegian guy named Bjørn with extremely long naturally blonde hair who loves Iron Maiden.

Sample bias is a thing 😉

What do you mean with celebrate? I mean, i get free from work but hardly celebrate anything (although maybe slightly at the winter solstice, when the shortest day had happened, happy that the days will get longer again)

Or Hannukah or Eid Al Fitr. Atheists are greedy lazy bastards hoarding presents and food which rightfully belongs to the theists!

Well it is the most wonderful time of the year.

Im an atheist that doesn't celebrate. I don't do holidays and haven't with my kids since their birth. Everyone is over consuming.

Nor do I want to contribute to the ignorance of religion.

Idc if everyone wants to pretend its not a religious holiday, the Christians around here foam at the mouth at the chance to spout their nonsense. Christmas lights didnt go down until recently.

Religion has caused so much harm.

I don't celebrate christmas. There, now you have.

Hello. Am atheist and don't celebrate Christmas. It's just another day to me.

I've never met a protestant that wasn't into a catholic saint's day at least once a year (valentine's day)

Beyond its religious context, it is one of the most widely-celebrated and practiced social gathering events, and a massive economic driver in many local economies. It would be strange to not celebrate it for the social aspect, even if you don't practice the religious aspect.

I do similar shit on the solstice these days out of respect, but if the Christians get any worse I'll start doing my part to dilute the holiday's religious significance even further out of spite.

I don't really celebrate it. Not because I am an atheist, tho. Because I am poor. 😩

Christmas is fun, when you have people to celebrate with.

In Scandinavia we celebrate "jul" (Scandinavian word for Christmas). "Jul" sounds a lot like Yule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule :)

If it were up to me I wouldn't.