To think people are ridiculous for moaning at the little things on Christmas, forgetting the true meaning?

And so many in Hollywood present themselves as allies of women, feminists even... Check out the Baldoni / Lively controversy, the subject of the film they worked on, etc.

Actually they aren’t. I’ve seen an increase in people attending church - particularly young people who are feeling lost, looking for answers and wanting to be part of a community.

You clearly have no grasp of history do you op?

The Christmas celebrations mean different things to different people - no right or wrong.

You do realise that not everyone lives in the northern hemisphere, and that some of us celebrate Christmas around the time of the summer solstice?

I actually agree with you OP, not so much about taking children to church, that is up to the individual, but yes, all the moaners have truly forgotten what the celebration is about.

I have a tree we set up for the Solstice, yes. The “Christmas “ tree comes from the Germanic traditions and was introduced into the uk in Victorian times.

There is an older tradition of bringing evergreens into the home over the Solstice period and my hearth is dressed with holly and ivy.

No we don’t have a roast.

Don't believe in God. None of us do. We do believe in food and presents though.

While there obviously have not been any high profile instances of violence by Christian terrorists in Europe in recent decades, it certainly is not the case that Christians are universally peaceful and tolerant.

Briefly, as a teenager, I had an interest in neopaganism (which proved a brief detour along the road to atheism). There was a fairly large neopaganism chat forum, similar in structure to Mumsnet, which had various subforums - including regional ones. The moderator for my region became inactive, so I volunteered to step in (although, in practice, I never actually had to do anything).

Unfortunately though, being listed as a moderator led to me receiving abusive and threatening messages, including death threats, from people who identified themselves as Christians (which, from talking to the other mods, was not uncommon). There were never any resulting instances of physical violence, but the threats most certainly were not peaceful.

If it doesn't go without saying, I don't believe the abusers were representative of all, most, or even a significant minority of Christians, but there are some nutters out there.

Well it was started by a warrior so not really

Yeah, well when I start seeing so love and peace out of it I'll believe you. Until then I won't.

God isn't real. Christmas is real. You can have a great godless Christmas.

I've taught my daughter that god isn't real but some people like to believe in him. So Christmas is nothing to do with religion in our house, thanks very much.

Islam IS a religion of peace, its the way some men choose to use it that isn't.

I'm wondering what amazing things the OP's god has done for me? I can't think of any one thing I could relate to which her god has done to help me. Maybe she, or some other similarly minded person, come back to the thread and share the information.
I have a sister whose goes to her church every week, she claims to be very religious and tells me regularly I should go to church, but she is actually a bit of a bitch to how she behaves towards other people. I prefer my family's actions and behaviours as decent good living people than her meanness

I’m not religious in any way, but Xmas should be about love, friends, family etc. Not about who bought what for who, and whether we need to LTB. 🙄

At least you can say what you like about Christianity without fear for your life.

I think the teacher from Batley who's still in hiding from the death threats made by some offended Muslims might not agree about Islam being a religion of peace. You might remember yourself the riots and number of people murdered by Muslims because they didn't like some cartoons.

Christmas is not a religious occasion for most people in the UK. It’s a social and cultural event because of the 2 bank holidays where more people make time to see friends and family rather than attend their church.
Religion has caused so much pain, conflict and death in the world that it is no surprise that people in the UK are moving away from it in the same way that they’ve moved away from ideas like colonialism. Christmas was invented to stamp out paganism - it is a fact that Jesus was not born on 25th December.

"This is a UK site and the UK is a secular country. Only 1% of the population goes to church each week, that's slightly fewer than go to the mosque each week. The vast majority of the population haven't attended a religious service except weddings or funerals for years."

THIS.

My children know the story of Christmas. We rate it up there with stick man and Dear Zoo. Good storyline but total fiction.

No its not.
He may have been a mythical figure and even if not so what?

I did go to church with ds1 and dfriend (ds2 peeled potatoes and ds1’s dp joined us after). We also drunk wine, ate good food, exchanged nice gifts, and played silly games. It’s not either / or and religion should never be something enforced.

Why did he have a hissy fit in the temple then, turning over tables and whatnot, because he was pissed off about what he saw as disrespectful to God

I posted earlier about how Christianity took over other celebrations and beliefs but I find it laughable that people are writing about the previous beliefs as if they mean 'more' than the ones that came later, it's all man made to take account of humans need to make sense of the world and/or to control other humans, paganism and celebrations of the solstice aren't any different in that respect it might make more sense to celebrate the solstice because it's celebrating a time of year but the ritual around it and accompanying beliefs aren't 'better ' than anything else, or worse for that matter

Oh bugger off. People celebrated winter solstice before Christianity was invented by people wanting to control the masses by fear.