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:
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”No peas for a bed
The little Malteasers®
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 25th, as some atheists suggest. I want to celebrate Christmas , because it’s what Britons do, and we can do it happily.
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 25th, as some atheists suggest. I want to celebrate Christmas , because it’s what Britons do, and we can do it happily.
Merry Christmas.
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