Isn't the reason saturnalia and the fact that changing the date too much would've lost followers.

I celebrate the season as originally intended, as the Winter Equinox and Saturnalia. It is truly a wonderful time of the year. A time to gather with family and friends. A time to celebrate our children who are our path to the future. A time to enjoy the fruits of our labor and harvest. I try to ignore the made up religious antics imposed upon us by the Christians who hijacked the celebration when our ancestors refused to give up the original and true reason for the season.

I celebrate the good food and excuse to meet family. Also an excuse to make a whole night barbecue and a free pass to be drunk in front of family and still be socially acceptable XD.

Yes, or I do when I can afford gifts. Jesus isnt the reason for Christmas hes just the hijacked name they threw on it. Its the Roman Saturnalia, or the pagan Solstice. St Nick was a combination of Odin and a philanthropist who paid peoples property tax so they wouldnt have to sell their daughters into slavery when poor couples had girls and couldnt afford to pay a dowry to have them married off.

As others have said its the shortest day of the year, celebrating the over the hump period of winter and generally just a good time to touch base with family. The whole week between christmas n new years is just an auspicous occasion to take a break from work, reflect on the year, show some anonymous generousity (the concept of santa is to celebrate anonymous gift giving without attribution or credit, pure love for loves sake).

The freezing cold is a good excuse to feast and drink and gather together for warmth, both emotionally and literally. Thats the reason for the season, and if christ loved us as much as the proverbial santas in our lives, he wouldnt take credit or make conditions for gifts either.

The reason for it? It was the shortest day till religions stole it! Then you have the legand/fable of Santa Clause which religions renamed St. Nick. Sharing gifts was already part of it but then again religions made it about them. Then corporation made it about profit. Its real meaning is for families to get together not any fake gods!

I celebrate it like every other holiday, an excuse to drink.

We've enjoyed reframing it to a Solstice celebration. Neither of us is much for ceremony, ritual, or traditions but it's a good time to light up the darkness a little and take some time to enjoy our Mother and family.

I have no notions about the religious aspect of christmas.
That being said,
I love christmas time. the lights, decorating the yard, doing the whole tree thing.
and being with some family, especially my mom.
We live very far apart, so it's great when we can get together.

I don't have a problem enjoying it , as long as others arent trying to shove religion and faith down my throat

Nope, and have gotten real good at almost ignoring it

Well both my husband and I decided as we were not religious and Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ, we wouldn't celebrate it. So I invented a festival for my children. I called it Star Day. The children loved it. We all dressed up in Space costumes and the children decorated their rooms as spaceships. I made each child a large sphere for their presents to be opened on Star Day. Star Day period began on the 21st Dec-- the Winter Solstice. Each day until the 25th(Star Day) a small sphere would be dropped with a little gift inside, culminating in the children opening their large sphere on Star Day. I encouraged the children to make up their own poems and songs and write about our wonderful universe. (I still have the lovely books they made} For decorations, we decorated the rest of the house with gold and silver stars. To this day my children celebrate Star Day with their families.

Yes, hard tradition not to do.

My wife makes me put up decorations. I do not like this spending orgy faux holiday.

I lost interest after i left the church. The rest of the holiday just seems so commercialized. I still meet up with friends occasionally but no gift giving etc...

I've asked myself the same question, haha! I grew up in former communist East Germany where we still celebrated Christmas - without the whole aspect, of course. So it never had any religious meaning to me to begin with. Now as an adult I still decorate for the atmosphere, the nostalgia. I do it simply for sentimental reasons, to go down memory lane. Christmas season has always been a time for peaceful quiet, for reflection, for seasonal foods, and for time with family (or now friends). I'd like to hold on to that aspect inside of my own home. So there'll be decorations, cookies, and even some Christmas music

i'm jewish. i never celebrated christmas. there never was any reason for it even before i became an atheist, at the age of 15. jesus, christianity, trees, lights, songs about kings and babies, never meant anything to me except an intrusion, a two-month (now three!) ubiquity, someone else's religion pushing its way into my unwilling consciousness. i've been to nice christmas parties. that's not the thing. it's just that it's EVERYWHERE. you can't escape it. people are wishing me merry christmas. people are ASSUMING. as an atheist, i never feel more stubbornly jewish than at the end of the year, when i long to hear chanukah songs! and by the way, almost all the of chanukah story is about an actual was; only the very end is the "miracle" bit and that doesn't detract much from the story, which is about religious freedom (which extends, as far as i am concerned, to freedom FROM religion as well). so i don't mind, and even enjoy, celebrating the holidays of my people. most of it is about "they tried to kill us. we lived. let's eat!"

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Winter Solstice, sort of! Spring is Coming!

I ignore it as much as possible. It’s a high pressure, depressing holiday that has nothing to do with what I know to be true. And they close the bars! That is no reason to celebrate. Give me Festivus and New Years’ Eve.

I enjoy Christmas simply as a very nice day for my children and grandchildren. When there's a touch of magic in the air. People tend to be more pleasant. The atmosphere is enhanced with the decorations, food, and music.

I genuinely don't celebrate it. I send my sons to their father during the holidays..., except New Year Day.

Same. Enjoyed watching my kid open her presents. Now she is 16, and she texts me the List.

I don't celebrate any holiday.

No, I also don't celebrate Ramadan, Yom Kippur or Holi. Happy Holydays!

Any excuse for a good piss up

It makes my kids happy. I love a lot of the music. It's beautiful. It wasn't originally about Jesus anyway. No reason not to enjoy it.