I too am an atheist, and I was never Catholic; but, I love Schubert's Ave Maria (and a few other religious Christmas songs). Christmas, though, doesn't do for me what it used to. I used to love decorating my house, inside and out but now I seldom bother with any decorations (and if I do any, they are winter season related). Sure, it has something to do with my atheism, but it also has a lot to do with my kids being grown, my grand kids already have so much, and it's my busy time for work.

THIS is a great example of indoctrination.

Christmas does have its redeeming qualities. For instance, it is the only time of the year in Christendom, when people are relatively nice to one another!

So do I

I enjoy it too. I put up some lights and other holiday things.

If you think christmas has ANYTHING to do with christianity you are sorely mistaken. The mid winter festival predates christianity by a few thousand years. Saturnalia was one of the first celebrations as (in the northern hemisphere) it is mid winter and cold and everything is usually dormant. The celebration was a way of cheering people up from the miseries of the cold dark days and a look forward to spring. Like all the holidays chritianity stole them all and then try to convince people that they had them first.Trouble is there are too many gullible people who will believe their crap.

I like aspects of Christmas. I like some religious music. None of this is incompatible with atheism.

Art and tradition express human yearning and whether I like it or not, a great deal of that is tangled up in religious ideation. To be ignorant concerning such things (or irrationally averse to them) is counterproductive.

I like some love ballads too, even though I think romantic love is nearly as overrated as religion. Despite that I feel that way, I can understand the feelings expressed, and can appreciate when they are expressed eloquently and artistically. Also, if I made my living as a musician, I'd be well advised to make the kind of music people want to hear. If they want to hear about lost loves and broken hearts and hand-wringing angst, then I'd better give it to them.

Fortunately the hunger for religious music is nowhere near as great as the hunger for romantic music. If you want to be a musician and completely ignore religion, you can get away with that. Not so with romance. Which speaks volume about which is more real: religion or romance?

I love Christmas trees all decorated in lovely baubles.

Some Christmas music is beautiful. A Methodist church in Wichita<Kansas was bequeathed It is also fun to see the joy that kids have at Christmas. arrangements that are great. I once went to a service at that church just to hear the music. It was truly enjoyable.

Speaking of classical Xmas music, here's a little known fact: Tchaikovsky hated the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. He felt it was unworthy of his talent. He was wrong.

Xmas isn't even really Christian anymore lol, it's shed much of the Abrahamic touch and embraced both the more pagan and the more modern traditions instead.

I love Christmas- making a traditional cake, listening to Handel's Messiah, and choral Christmas music. I've found many who are agnostic, doubting or atheists love all this too. Perhaps since Dickens re invented Christmas and bequeathed to westerners many of the customs of Christmas it has captured the imagination of many irrespective of their religious convictions or absence thereof.

I am an atheist and I also like Christmas. The general feeling of the people, the city and home decorations, the music. We decorate the house and change presents, have a nice supper...and the three of us are atheists! We don't waste any occasion for feeling happy, and that includes the New Year's Eve that has no meaning for us either!

I adore Christ's Mass. It is not Jesus I fear. It is his followers. So one hypocritical religion this Saint Niklaus is, but after the pseudo birthday of the 25th (Caesar changed the calendar) the bargains can be reveled in. This year I set up my charitable trust & have already received 10 fold in karmic blessings. Those that shall go forth I do good deeds shall be known forthwith as good deed doers. I am giving back to fortune as fortune has given unto me. New vehicle perhaps? Ford Ranger 2020 or Subaru equivalent? Hhmmm.

I do too!

I can agree with this. My memories of Christmas go back to another time when we were carefree and the music was so wonderful. I was a child or a young teen and had a feeling of awe about this time of year and the feeling had to do with people and festivities. As the song said, it was the most wonderful time of year. When I had those feelings it had nothing to do with religion at all really.

Living alone today and seeing what this has all become makes me cringe and just want to get through it. When everyone has to have more, the best and the most, the biggest and most envious, etc. I find no "spirit" in my old holiday. If I hear Christmas music I would want the trusted songs of the 1940's mostly. BTW, Fox News and Bill O'Reilly, Bing Crosby sang "Happy Holidays" back in 1942. The real "war on Christmas" came about by todays greed and not by who could or could not say certain words.

Go to a family meeting, put this playlist on background and wait until someone to notice (OBS: I can't post links to plalist because the site interprets as a video and fails to open it, so here is the first music of the playlist)

Don't forget the celebration of the winter solstice predates Christianity by untold millennia. I basically go to every holiday party to celebrate the pagan version of Christmas, by which I mean all the good parts.

Many people like Christmas without being bound up in deity-belief. Far be it for me to tell anyone to sit and cry through the holiday. However, I cannot feel that way. Christmas was never part of my tradition and I have no happy warm fuzzies to associate with it. Raised a secular Jewish, well aware that many (by no means most) secular Jews have trees and all, I come from a family that did not. Our nearly complete lack of religion was counterbalanced by a strong sense of Jewish identity. So every winter, there we were, inundated by lights, jingling bells, Santa's, Christmas movies, Christmas episodes of TV series, people yelling merry Christmas at us, red and green, tinsel, and no hint that we existed. No me anywhere. Talk about exclusion and isolation! So I can take no joy in Christmas. I wish you joy of yours but I cannot participate in it. I can barely bear it.

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It is a chance for the family to get together. It's nice to see and play with the grandkids. Not a fan of the forced gift giving though. Seems like a lot of waste. Prefer to celebrate the winter solstice. It's an older holiday and since it's as yet unspoiled we can start a tradition in a rational manner centered around family and friends. Lets let the Christians have xmas and all the commercialization that entails.

"Jesus Christ" is the Messiah's handle.

Christmas is awesome and for me it’s got nothing to do with our dear Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Enjoy.

Ah yes, Christmas ... actually it is the Pagan celebration of rebirth. The shortest day of the year " Winter Solstice " there are two times when the tilt of the Earth is zero, meaning that the tilt is neither away from the Sun nor toward the Sun. Incidentally, Christ supposedly was born at that time. So, scientifically it's the 'come back' of Mother Nature that we celebrate. We humans love the Life Giving Sun and have always worship. I do .. every morning when I see her . I lift my arms up and thank for another day ... who do I thank? The Sun!

There is a lot of celebration around with winter solstice: doesn't matter what it's called or how it is celebrated. Gift giving, pine trees, and all the other things surround Christmas didn't start in Christianity. The only thing Christmas can claim as its own thing is the birth of their avatar and the greed that is shown at this time of year.