BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Atheist Atheism and Holidays

Hi All,

Does anyone else here celebrate any type of holiday during this time of year? Most of my family (and husband's) family celebrate christmas so we sort of go along for the ride. I have asked him how he feels about celebrating this holiday since we are both Atheists and he replies "Holidays are about being with people we care about not about religion." So, I guess this is okay but it does feel a little strange to celebrate a holiday like christmas when i don't believe in everything that goes along with it. I find myself saying "Happy Holidays" and writing x-mas (instead of christmas) as much as possible.
I have a friend who is from Russia and she explained to me that when she lived in Russia it was very much an Atheist country so instead of celebrating holidays that were religious in nature, they always celebrated (and still do) New Years Eve as their big holiday of the year. That way they still spend time with family, celebrate, give gifts, etc. but w/o religion involved at all. I really like that idea!! :-)

Personally I love all the happily feasts and participated on them whether it was belong to our culture and religion or not.
As I see in here also some people celebrated Christmas as me too although we are Muslim and our calendar is different from yours and haven�t any holiday for this feast.
In fact most of our feasts in Iran aren�t concern of Islam, as Yalda eve (Shabe Cheleh), Chahar Shanbehsori, Nowrooz, Mehergan and some others. All belong to our ex-religion as Mithraism and Zoroastrian and more depend on our culture than religion.

I think we have to be happy for any reason and don�t care of it was belong to what.
In the other hand I�m not sure customs about Christmas had been come from Christianity as Santa, Xmas tree and �.

I feel I had a very secular holiday. The only thing I had to do was ask my dad to change the sacred choral music to Chopin. And he did.

Chopin. Now that's lovely.
I walked out to a Chopin piece when I got married.

For me this time of year is all about the ending of the year and beginning of a new one. It's a time to think over the past year and what I accomplished, etc. I celebrate the friends who are still in contact scattered as they are all over the world. My hubby and I exchange gifts, but we have chosen to give other family members gifts for their birthdays rather than this holiday.

And it's midsummer here in Australia. So we celebrate that with a green tree (plastic for convenience) decorated with baubles representing the fruits and bright colours of summer, and lights that represent the extra light of summer and the longer days. We have a dragon on top of the tree, simply because we both love dragons.

As for music, I need to get more festive CDs, but I always associate Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite with this time of year. (For our first dance at our wedding, my hubby and I waltzed to the Waltz of the Flowers, so there are lovely memories there too.)

And then just for fun we raise a glass of good red to the birthday of Dionysus or Bacchus <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />