The Meaning of my Atheist Christmas

One of my Christmas presents this year was The Atheists Guide To Christmas. It features, amongst other things, how atheists think about Christmas and reflections of childhood Christmases. The book is possibly worth having just for Catie Wilkin‘s Christmas memories, such as being a child and trying to send a Christmas card to the Devil to cheer him up. While it won't make any books, I thought I'd share my thoughts and memories of atheist Christmases.

Christmas has never had much religious connotation to me. I'm part of the third generation of atheists on my mother’s side of the family. I was raised so secularly that when my nursery school attempted to teach me Christmas carols, I sang:

“Away in a manger
No peas for a bed
The little Malteasers®

Lay down their sweet heads”

I can see that Malteasers would have made sense to me – after all, what’s a sweet head if not the head of a sweet? I have no idea where I got ‘peas’ from; I’m not aware that cribs are a religious thing.

Christmas was an exciting time of year where people gave me lots of toys. I knew you weren’t supposed to think The Meaning of Christmas was presents, but I had to try very hard to find another one. I knew that Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, but none of us believed in that. I tried to say to my mum that The Meaning of Christmas is that “Everybody’s happy”. My mum’s reaction was the first time I understood how stressful Christmas was for grown-ups.

As a teenager, this stress started to hit me, too. I didn’t want people to spoil me with gifts. I’d like to say that I was concerned about others who had very little, or about environmentalism, or about focussing on material possessions above true happiness. I think these things played a part, but this was when my depression first emerged, and I simply felt that I didn’t deserve anything.  Adolescence was also when plastic snowmen from the school Christmas fete no longer passed as gifts for everyone. I have Asperger’s Syndrome, which causes difficulty in understanding others and anxiety in busy environments. Christmas shopping can be very challenging. 

But nowadays, there is online shopping, and I’ve discovered small business and planning far ahead. I don’t need to go into crowded shopping centres blasting the same Christmas pop songs any more. I don’t live with my family nowadays, and Christmas is usually an opportunity to go and see them. There will be no one changing my familiar home with Christmas decorations unless I do. The Meaning of Christmas is what I make it.

And I love putting up Christmas decorations. Better still, I love making them. And this year, I have truly mastered stress-free gift buying. I hope my gifts show people how much I think of them, even if we don’t see each other often. The last few Christmases I’ve spent with my family. This year, my partner and I have spent Christmas together with his mum.  He described it as ‘a mini live-together’, as we should be moving into a flat together in 2015. It’s been lovely.

I’ve enjoyed Christmas music, as I’ve got more into folk and folk-rock, and decided that carols are quite lovely when you’re not being forced to sing them by your religious primary school. I’ve enjoyed the festive food, and the excuse to abandon my diet for a few days and eat mince pies and satsumas for lunch. Every year, I look forward to the Christmas episode of QI, and the Christmas & New Year edition of New Scientist. The latter briefly mentioned moa-nalo, giant flightless ducks that have been extinct for hundreds of years. I decided this was awesome and wrote several parodies of Christmas carols about them. Last night, I was pretty entertained by the bizarre things on TV late on a Boxing Day night when most people are tired out and in bed. Highlights include ‘Sex Sent Me to the ER’ and ‘Zombies vs Cockneys’.

To me, Christmas is about tradition: things that you do purely for fun and nostalgia that you don’t realise are totally weird until you try to explain them to someone from another culture. Most of these traditions, such as fairy lights; partying; kissing under the mistletoe; and eating Christmas pudding have nothing to do with religion. I am free to enjoy them without awkwardness. I have considered celebrating New Year in this way instead, as the day actually means something to me, but that’d put me out of line with the rest of the country. I need those few days off that Britain give us at Christmas to see my loved ones.  It’s just not going to work for me to start calling it ‘Midwinter’ or trying to move it. It’s highly unlikely that the day was chosen for Christ’s birth anyway, and I’m hardly the only one having a secular Christmas. I don’t want to celebrate  ‘Isaac Newton’s birthday’ on December 25^th, as some atheists suggest. I want to celebrate Christmas , because it’s what Britons do, and we can do it happily.

Merry Christmas.

World Hijab Day

I nearly didn't write this blog. But I logged on to Twitter this morning and read the following:

The test of whether Hijab is a 'feminist statement' is not that some women choose to wear it but what happens to women who don't. #bbctbq

I didn't watch The Big Questions on the BBC (bbctbq), but yesterday I tried to take part in World Hijab Day. It invites non-hijabi (hijabi = one who wears hijab) Muslims and non-Muslim women to wear the hijab for a day. It was started by a woman who was badly bullied at school because she wore hijab. Others have written in saying that they were told they could not succeed in their career if they wore hijab.

I want to make something clear: I don't agree with the ideas of modesty or the idea of 'protection' that the hijab often stands for. As a feminist, I was recently entertained by this Facebook page which applies similar standards to men.
What I do strongly believe in is the freedom to practice one's religion and dress as one wishes, unless it intervenes on others' rights. Someone is not truly free to wear something if others will harass them for it or discriminate against them.

People are always talking about the hijab. Since the 'French Headscarf Ban', many people have discussed if the hijab should be permitted in schools. I am not a fan of uniforms, so my argument on that may be fairly invalid. As I see it, if the girls look smart, there is no problem. But I would say the same thing for earrings, or long hair on boys, which are also often banned. Many newspapers seemed to claim that part of the reason for the closure of the Al-Medina school was due to the uniform including a hijab for girls, or them asking female staff to wear it. The OFSTED report made no mention of this; the school was closed due to poor teaching ad management.

Then there are statements like the one I've quoted above. The idea that something is no longer a statement if it is enforced upon other women (esp. in other parts of the world) seems silly to me. It would be like saying that it means nothing for me to chose to be teetotal, because others are pressured to not drink and in some parts of the world, alcohol is banned. I am irritated when people who seem to argue against anyone wearing hijab because some women are forced to. People are forced to do all manner of things. Should no one study medicine, because many people are pressured into doing it by their families? While we're on to the subject of modesty, should we ban long skirts, because some women are taught that's the only option? No, because it's the force that's the issue.

I wanted to wear hijab for a day because I wanted to show that a piece of cloth over a woman's head should not cause so much fuss.

I put it on before I left the house in the morning. It was a very windy day, and it was difficult to keep the scarf neat and covering all of my hair. I suppose those who do it everyday learn how. My first thing to do that day was to collect something from a friends' house. My friend didn't even mention my hijab; perhaps because I often wear other forms of headscarf, perhaps because we didn't have much time and it wasn't important.

Things then got a bit more difficult. What I planned to do next was go for lunch in the pub with my boyfriend. Was it okay to do that, something that seemed very un-Islamic, while my headgear announced “I AM A MUSLIM”? Neither of us drink alcohol; we were only going there for food. And who's to we're not married? I decided to keep the scarf on, but I felt very uneasy. I think this took it's toll on me. Those who know me will know I'm not in good health at the moment. After lunch, I returned home and collapsed onto the sofa and fell asleep. I was woken by the doorbell as the Sainsbury's delivery arrived (being able to order shopping online is marvellous when you're unwell!). The man delivering the shopping asked if I was a Muslim. He looked as though he may be Muslim himself. I explained I was not, but I was taking part in World Hijab Day to stand up for the hijab as something that should not be mocked or banned. He didn't seem very interested in my reasons; he just seemed to want to know whether or not I was Muslim because he 'was confused'.

After putting away some of the shopping, I fell asleep again for several hours. I didn't put on my hijab again when I went to a friend's house in the evening; largely because I wasn't sure where I'd put it before falling asleep!

After taking part in World Hijab Day, I decided I would not do it again. It feels as though I cannot be my non-Muslim self while wearing a symbol of Islam. I will continue to wear other styles of headscarf* though, as this seems controversial in itself. It never used to be; headscarves were popular with British women before the 70s. But now covering the head is linked with hijab, and that's enough to make me feel self-conscious. That self-consciousness highlights why I should keep wearing them. Women should be able to cover their head/hair if they chose, and it is rarely anyone else’s business.

*When wearing a headscarf, I make a point of it not covering my neck as well as my head to distinguish it from the hijab. However, I would like to sometimes cover my neck too in cold weather!