What to do about holidays is something that a lot of us think about.  While the family gathering is dandy and the big meal is always nice, it can get uncomfortable for some when the holiday leans toward the xian celebration instead of "celebrating" consumerism.

There are some thoughts about that in this thread and also in this thread.

Sounds like Starbucks is a bit more progressive in several areas, too.  There are some interesting posts in this thread.

By the way, I've had Starbuck's Holiday Blend and it's quite nice.  If I'm working at "my" local theater in November/December, I always take a big bag of Holiday Blend to share with the cast and crew during rehearsals. 

Keep in mind that the "X" in x-mas is just shorthand for "Christ", so you're not really separating the religious from the secular by calling it xmas. Aside from that, I agree with your point.

Though I am growing to despise religion in its many forms, I am a bit of a sucker for tradition in other aspects. And the winter holiday is a tradition from long before Christianity took it over. We can thank our pagan ancestors for refusing to give up the tree, gifting, egg-nog and such.

As for myself, when I am in a position to throw my own winter shin-digs, it will be on the day of the winter solstice, and it will be full of non-religious traditions.

Meh, I still celbrate christmas with the family as well. To me its like another Thanksgiving or July 4th, but with presents too.

Spending time with the family, eating good food, giving each other stuff. What's not to like about that? We just happen to do it on a day some people think Jesus was born on and is a national holiday.

That was meant for the original poster.

But it is a problem. What do we call it? Winter Holiday? Not only is that boring and generic, it includes the work holiday which is a concatination of "holy day", which it is not.

Should we call it a festival? A solstice feast? Perhaps a secular hero we can name it after? I'm leaning toward something with the word solstice in it, since that is an undenyable astronomical event.

  Exactly. Me too. That's why I didn't like a video by someone from this forum criticizing passive atheists for celebrating Christmas and stuff.

xmas has always been just about giving gifts and being with family, for me. my parents are very casual christians (leaning toward agnostic) and not once during my childhood did they ever bring up christ during the holidays. honestly, santa and frosty are a hundred times more fun than baby jesus. why ruin a nice family holiday worrying about ridulous xian symbolism?

But Christmas or as some have called it "xmas" is not a holiday.  Considering it is a holiday is contradictory.

OK one very HUGE problem with that....why aren't you doing that the other 364 days of the year?  The reason the commercialization of Christmas is bad is for that exact reason....we'd rather do it one month of the year and think that redeems us from the rest of the year of ignoring family or friends due to our selfish purposes.

Now this is where you shouldn't generalize because you are dead wrong...

Anyone with half a brain knows that Jesus was not born on the 25th day of December.  It is the day that was set aside for those who do believe in him to celebrate his birth(day).  It would be just the same if your birthday fell on a Tuesday and you decided to celebrate it on the weekend instead; everyone knows that's not your day yet so you can have everyone united for your day you pick a date and go from there.  

Oh...and please don't get into the pagan celebrations because that's not my point. 

It lost control because of the fear of lawsuits on not being politically correct and making sure we don't offend anyone else to make sure that stores retain profits so that everyone who would like to participate in the "holiday" will spend money.  Imagine how much business would be lost if you limit christmas spending to only christians? 

Oh I'm not saying he wasn't but his post sure didn't portray that.  If you want to set a date to enjoy family, why not make it May 18th?  My point here is that Christmas was never meant to be a "holiday" but rather an observance.

Oh I gave up on that idea a long time ago.  For me the only issue is when there are others that are asking Christians to stop celebrating Chrstmas for the birth of Jesus. 

Oh I agree but the REASON it is is what I believe to be important. 

Some Christians would disagree with you...especially those who are Christian only those two days of the year.  (Oops...did I just write that?)

BAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAA......all hail George Lucas. 

Brights, your sister needs to spend a little time learning a some background.

From Answers.com:

X·mas (krĭs'məs, ĕks'məs)
n.
Christmas.

[From X, the Greek letter chi, first letter of Greek Khrīstos, Christ. See Christ.]

USAGE NOTE   Xmas has been used for hundreds of years in religious writing, where the X represents a Greek chi, the first letter of Χριστος, “Christ.” In this use it is parallel to other forms like Xtian, “Christian.” But people unaware of the Greek origin of this X often mistakenly interpret Xmas as an informal shortening pronounced (ĕks'məs). Many therefore frown upon the term Xmas because it seems to them a commercial convenience that omits Christ from Christmas.

"Xmas" and "X-mas" are common abbreviations of the word "Christmas". They are sometimes pronounced "eksmas", but they, and variants such as "Xtemass", originated as handwriting abbreviations for the pronunciation "Christmas". The "-mas" part came from the Anglo-Saxon for "festival", "religious event": Crīstesmæsse or Crīstemæsse. This abbreviation is widely used but not universally accepted; some view it as demeaning to Christ, whilst others find it a helpful abbreviation.

The word "Christ" and its compounds, including "Christmas", have been abbreviated for at least the past 1,000 years, long before the modern "Xmas" was commonly used. "Christ" was often written as "XP" or "Xt"; there are references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as far back as 1021 AD. This X and P arose as the uppercase forms of the Greek letters χ and ρ), used in ancient abbreviations for Χριστος (Greek for "Christ&quot, and are still widely seen in many Eastern Orthodox icons depicting Jesus Christ. The labarum, an amalgamation of the two Greek letters rendered as ☧, is a symbol often used to represent Christ in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian Churches.

Some people believe that the term is part of an effort to "take Christ out of Christmas" or to literally "cross out Christ"; it is also seen as evidence of the secularization of Christmas, as a symptom of the commercialization of the holiday (as the abbreviation has long been used by retailers). It may also be used as a vehicle to be more inclusive, see political correctness.

The labarum, often called the Chi-Rho, is a Christian symbol representing Christ.

The occasionally held belief that the "X" represents the cross Christ was crucified on has no basis in fact. St Andrew's Cross is X-shaped, but Christ's cross was probably shaped like a T or a †. Indeed, X-as-chi was associated with Christ long before X-as-cross could be, since the cross as a Christian symbol developed later. (The Greek letter Chi Χ stood for "Christ" in the ancient Greek acrostic ΙΧΘΥΣ ichthys.) While some see the spelling of Christmas as Xmas a threat, others see it as a way to honor the martyrs. The use of X as an abbreviation for "cross" in modern abbreviated writing (e.g. "Kings X" for "Kings Cross&quot may have reinforced this assumption.

In ancient Christian art χ and χρ are abbreviations for Christ's name. In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, X is an abbreviation for Christos, as is XC (the first and last letters in Greek, using the lunate sigma); compare IC for Jesus in Greek. The Oxford English Dictionary documents the use of this abbreviation back to 1551, 50 years before the first English colonists arrived in North America and 60 years before the King James Version of the Bible was completed. At the same time, Xian and Xianity were in frequent use as abbreviations of "Christian" and "Christianity"; and nowadays still are sometimes so used, but much less than "Xmas". The proper names containing the name "Christ" other than aforementioned are rarely abbreviated in this way (e.g. Hayden Xensen for the actor name "Hayden Christensen&quot. Pop artist Christina Aguilera is known to spell her first name as 'Xtina'.

his apparent usage of "X" to spell the syllable "kris" (rather than the sounds "ks&quot has extended to "xtal" for "crystal", and on florists' signs "xant" for "chrysanthemum"[4] (though these words are not etymologically related to "Christ"; "crystal" comes from a Greek word meaning "ice", and "chrysanthemum" from Greek words meaning "golden flower", while "Christ" comes from a Greek word meaning "anointed&quot.

In the animated television show Futurama, which is set in the 31st century, Xmas is the official name for the day formerly known as Christmas (which has become an "archaic pronunciation&quot.

In Japanese media and goods, Xmas/X-mas is commonly misspelled as "X'mas" in what amounts to an instance of wasei-eigo, or English made in Japan.

Susan thank you for this information.  I never knew about this and I sure my sister doesn't either.  Shoud be interesting to hear her response.  I'm sure she will get some half assed answer from her pastor on how to respond.  Get this my sister bakes a cake and puts happy birthday jesus on it, everyone sings happy birthday to jesus, blows out the candles and yell out yay.  The last time they did this our big brother immediately right after yelling out yay said and a partridge in a pair tree.  I nearly fell over laughing when he said that.   the children enjoy singing happy birthday no matter who it's for and of course can't wait to eat the cake.  It's all magical fun for them with lots of presents.  xmas was always big in my family.  We do get together for just about every other occasion such as childrens b-days, some anniversaries, weddings, etc.  We that is myself and my parents with big brother who said partridge in a pair tree never got together for easter but since our dad died we have been getting together for dinner on easter.  This year I put a stop to it, I only went along to please my mother but now it's time for her to accept that I just don't want to celebrate easter.  Especially since we never did before.  Xmas  I will celebrate but that's mostly because I like and need the money she gives us lol.  I like the food and getting together but I hate the fairytale and gift giving between siblings, neices & nephews.  I don't have children and really can't afford to give gifts to them.  My mother says she gives me extra $ for that but she really doesn't.  The amount just isn't enough to cover the expense with 9 of the them to buy for.  Not to be selfish but I buy each one their individual gift and get one gift back from each family.  Sheesh that get's expensive.  Only one of my big brothers wife gives me a b-day gift but I buy and give money for all the childrens b-days even when I can't be there.  I'll be glad when they are all 18 yrs old, that's the age we all chose to stop giving to the children.

Anyway I am on a rant here and again thank you for taking the time to share this information with me.  I will let her know this

I would love to hear how you figure that! If the day of celebration for the birth of the messiah is not a holy day, then exactly what is?

Oh, and thanks for the backup on the X-mas topic, Susan.

Are you British or something? The word "holiday" is a concatenation of the words "holy" and "day". In England its primary usage is "vacation", but in America it still retains most of it's original meaning, which is that of a day set aside for religious observance. Of course we use it to mean "a day off work", but we know that it's mostly because of religious purposes, with a few exceptions like the 4th of July, and sometimes (though rarely) days like Memorial Day and Labor Day.

I hear what you are saying about people who ignore family for the rest of the year, but there is no telling whether those people would be better off without a set holiday or not. Perhaps they would ignore their family year-round. Isn't it better in that case that there is a time when people are especially encouraged to re-engage with their families? I certainly disagree if you are implying that winter holidays encourage people to ignore their families for the rest of the year.

And as for commercialism... that is a natural outgrowth of the gifting tradition, and I would not have it any other way. I'm not religious, but I love the feeling of giving somebody a gift I know they will like, and I think it's great to have an excuse to give. When I was a kid I used to love to get presents, but now I find that I get much more satisfaction from giving rather than receiving. I think the hatred of commercialism is transferrence from some other problem people may have with the occasion. Perhaps the feeling that they can't afford to give as much as they'd like, or that they feel a lack of reciprocation. Those are just my personal suspicions, though.

Where did I come up with that? It's etymology! Back in the 14th century, when people were speaking old english, they just started running the words hālig (meaning holy) and dæg (meaning day) into one word, hāligdæg, where it meant both "holy day" and "day of recreation". hālig developed into holi, then holy. dæg developed into dai, then day. I don't know why that isn't intuitively obvious for you. The word holiday is only one letter different from holy day, and the letters i and y are used almost exactly the same in the English language.

I don't get your point. You sound like you don't want the commercial aspects of Christmas, but you also say the family unity is because of the "commercial side". What are you saying? What is wrong with having a time of year when family unity is especially encouraged?

The reason why Christmas is observed in December near the solstice is because that's when everybody was having a party anyway. It was called Saturnalia, and it was a celebration of the rebirth of the sun after the solsitce. That's where the gifting tradition came from. The early church wanted to convert people, and the people didn't want to give up their traditions, so they put Christmas at the same time as the other festival and let them keep the fun parts so long as they stopped worshipping Saturn. If it was truly a celebration of the Christ's birth, it would be in the late spring or early summer probably. That is the time of year that he was most likely born.

I agree that Christmas should not be about gift giving. It would be great if Christians would move it to some other day so it wouldn't mess up the party atmosphere. Maybe we could go back to calling it Saturnalia.

Ha! You defend observing the birth of the messiah 6 months late, and then you call me brainwashed? If Tuesday isn't convenient for holding services in honor of the birth of your lord and savior, there's nobody stopping them from at least being in the right month! The winter solstice has been a time of celebration long before Christianity crashed the party, so you really have no leg to stand on.

The one and only reason Christmas is December 25th is so that Christians could integrate all the traditions you want to be rid of. You should be campaigning to move the date rather than dismissing the notion as "silly".

I'll keep the tree, yule log and the wassail, as well as the days between solstice and New Years. You can have your church services in some other season.

I'm twisting it to show you how weak that argument is. You are trying to use the word "observance" to justify celebrating Christmas on December 25th, when it has no religious justification for being on that date.

It isn't a dodge, it is the core of my point. Everything you seem to dislike about Christmas is not Christian. Stop blaming society for ruining Christmas! It was never the pure thing you imagine it was. It was specifically put on that date by your religion's forefathers to incorporate all the things you don't like, traditions that were in place well before Christ.

You ask why any non-Christian would have anything to do with the celebration at Christmas? Because the traditions are fun and heartwarming, and they're not Christian. Very simple.

I have no hate for theists, I'm just tired of people like you who act like Christmas has been spoiled by all these secular traditions, when it is clearly the opposite.

Can you please re-state your question in the form of a question?

You don't know my grandmother. Hehe.

But point taken.

Razorphreak, sorry, but I don't understand what you are asking. I don't hate Christmas or Christians. I just wish the fun winter traditions could remain without the religious aspects that I don't believe in.

If there is something else you would like a solid answer for, please ask again and I will try.

Alex Trebek would be proud! 

I have answered this question several times, but let me try to say it in a different way.

I grew up celebrating Christmas in a Christian home. After I decided that I no longer believed in Christ, of course I didn't want to celebrate his birth. But almost all of the traditions that I enjoyed growing up are not Christian in origin. I see no reason why I should stop enjoying things like tree decorating and gift-giving. They are cultural traditions, not religious. Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews may or may not have their own winter traditions, but because I am of European decent, I inherited the traditions which have become identified with Christianity. Well, I have no problem taking the Christianity right back out of my Saturnalia and Yule festivities.

I practice the winter traditions because they are fun. There is no conflict with my atheism.

I hope that made sense.

It is clear to me now that you are actively ignoring my arguments, so this will be the last post I make in answer to you unless you make a logical counterargument.

I have never, NEVER suggested that anyone should be denied the right to celebrate Christmas in any way they choose! However much I would like Christians to move the date to some other time of year, I would vehemently oppose any law designed to force that. Don't you DARE suggest that I would deny anybody their constitutional rights!

Though you say you understand the history of Christmas and the traditions that surround it, your replies show that in your mind you cannot separate tradition from religion. I have that ability:

Christmas:
· Advent
· Christmas eve church service
· Christmas day church service

Not Christmas (originally):
· Gifting
· Decorating the house with evergreens
· Large family meals
· Drinking with friends
· Singing door-to-door
· Holding these traditions around the winter solstice

These are European traditions (ie. not Jewish, not Muslim, not Hindu, not Buddhist) from BEFORE CHRISTMAS WAS INVENTED! You say you understand, you are tired of me repeating myself, but you keep writing as if they are all an inseparable part of Christmas. They are not. Just because European culture has been primarily Christian for many centuries, that does not make all of our traditions inherently Christian. Certainly not the things we have done from before Christianity.

In my life, I have dropped the "Christmas" section above, and have lots of fun stuff left to do from the "Not Christmas" category, which is entirely non-religious. THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION.

Now, unless you can show me where this rational explanation is faulty, I'm done.

Ok, I think I see where the misunderstanding is. Perhaps I wasn't clear in my earlier posts:

I do not celebrate Christmas.

I celebrate the Western European, non-religious traditions surrounding winter solstice.

Though many people in this country consider them to be the exact same thing, I do not.

If you look at my early posts in this thread, they are concerned with the name we should give those traditions, since they are not Christian. There are atheists who say (in this very thread) that they celebrate Christmas, but they don't. Like me, they celebrate the non-religious traditions, but there just isn't a commonly used word for that, so it's easier to say Christmas, and most people will know from the context what is meant.

I think we wold both be happier if the word Christmas was only used to mean those pure religious services you enjoy, and there was some other word meaning all the other traditions that I enjoy. Something simpler than "winter solstice secular traditions".

I think we are in agreement here, we just need to use the correct words.

Though the religious right would like you to believe this is an attack on Christmas, it is not. This is an issue of the separation of church and state. Those public displays you are talking about were on government property, and the government should not be supporting one religion over another. That's what the first ammendment is about. If you want to spend public money or use government land for a religious display, you must give equal time and funding to all other religions. Since that is impossible, we must make sure that it doesn't happen for any religions. In the long run, this is just as much for the protection of Christians as any other group. You are free to make public displays on your private property or church property.

As for the removal of public references to Jesus, maybe that was also in government sponsored displays. I'm not familiar with that case. Where did that happen?