Does religion feature in your christmas?

[Mindtrope]

I have some very religious members of my family.
I always think it odd that she sends me cards with pictures of camels and sand dunes at christmas time.The only thing we do is listen to Carols at Kings, sweet in a traditional way, but not for the religious aspect.
Is your house a jesus free zone?

Pagan household here so we don't celebrate Christmas either with or without Jesus but we do celebrate Yule a few days before.

DH always volunteers to work Christmas Day as the enhanced pay is more use to us than a day off and he almost always gets Yule off work for us to celebrate our own festival anyway.

If people are celebrating / remembering aspects of Pagan religions in the ritualistic elements of their 'Christmases' (or whatever name they give to the season), how can this be seen as non religious? Surely they are participating in some aspect of religion albeit not a Christian one?

That's like being a vegetarian that eats steak.

I'd say it's more like being a meat-eater who sometimes chooses the vegetarian option.

HeCantBeSerious

Do you mean a bit like saying Christian but culturally pagan, were many of the traditions, and even the date of Christmas came from. :)

No, it's Team Santa in this house.

I'd say it's more like being a meat-eater who sometimes chooses the vegetarian option

It's the opposite isn't it? Living the majority of the time without something (meat = religion) but then occasionally eating steak.

I saw it more as not being bound by the restrictions of an ideology which doesn't reflect one's own beliefs (vegetarianism, Christianity) while enjoying some of the nice things associated with that ideology (felafels, Carol singing).

No religion in our house. DH doesn't believe in anything at all and my belief is vague - I believe in 'something' but it's not God / Jesus. Hard to explain.
I do enjoy listening to carols though, and attend the Salvation Army carol concert most years.

The religious members of our family go abroad every Christmas as the commercialism of it here makes them uncomfortable

The religious members of our family go abroad every Christmas as the commercialism of it here makes them uncomfortable

We often go abroad to places that don't celebrate Xmas!

Interesting how many households are divided along religious lines yet otherwise very happily celebrating a mish mash. Ours is the same, both nominally CofE but DH much more religious than me even though my grandparents were clergy on both sides.

I'm always intrigued by paganism. Nature worship makes much more sense to me than investing my faith in centuries of misogynistic church tradition.

Jeremiah 10

*2 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.*

I'm always intrigued by paganism. Nature worship makes much more sense to me than investing my faith in centuries of misogynistic church tradition.

Yes yes.

I sing a lot, so I get involved in lots of carols. Also I always go to the cathedral carol service with the DDs as the msic and the acoustic are sublime.

I am agnostic, but do feel that the message of Christmas has relevance - the concept of there being strength in weakness and not having to be a powerful person to be a good influence.

Team Santa all the way!!!

Kids do nativity at school and whatnot but I'm atheist and dh doesn't give a damn either way. Kids know it's a story some believe is true, they know I don't believe but that they can make their own minds up.

So no Jesus doesn't come into Christmas in our house but if the kids wanted to I wouldn't be against it.

lol lol lol OP.

That's not a Christmas tree they're talking about.

It's a totem pole.

You do realise this was written long before the tradition of decorating trees at Christmas began? But there were lots of totems poles around?

Thank you for giving me a chuckle though.

My DH is fiercely atheist. I was brought up by atheists but have an open mind. My DS embraced Christianity as a teen and got himself baptised. We go to the Christingle service each year as an extended family, because we like the sense of community and DS likes going to church. Apart from that, we are very much a Jesus free zone.

We're a mix of Christmas and Yule here too, the kids have a nativity set that goes under the tree and I love Christmas carols but I'm pagan so we blend the 2 together (although I do my own Yule ritual later on my own).
It works for us

slender- you make me laugh. Totem poles existed in the Americas. No archeological evidence of totem poles in the middle east I'm afraid. But hey, lets not allow facts to get in the way of faith eh.

I would also say that I'm 'atheist but culturally Christian'. To me it means that I don't believe in God, but I was brought up in a Christian culture so I love some of the 'religious' aspects of Christmas, eg hearing carols sung, as they are a reminder of the Christmases of my childhood, but they don't have any religious significance for me.

No, we are all atheists. We don't object to religion and I do like a good Carol concert but it's not a part of our house.

Completely centra as ' Jesus is the reason for the season' sounds corny but true. Looking forward to first vespers of Christmas abd midnight mass.

A quick google reveals that Jeremiah is talking about trees carved and then decorated to make idols.

Christmas trees and all their bling didn't go viral until Victorian times so very much doubt anyone is being warned off them in desert lands thousands of years ago.

We go to church so we do at Christmas time too.
My parents don't see why non-Christians celebrate Christmas. I think they're being deliberately dim. Aside for the birth of Jesus, Christmas is also about celebrating with friends and family and taking time to enjoy them. I love Christmas!

We celebrate on the 25th but focus on all the Winter Solstice traditions. I usually make Solstice lanterns with the kids on the 21st, and we talk about the meaning and the shortest day and days getting longer. And why we have a Christmas tree, and special food and gifts, we get a Yule log too. Most of the fun stuff of Christmas is originated from the Winter Solstice so I dont feel I have to justify myself to Christians who claim it as their own. The really religious I know don't have a tree, as they know it is a pagan tradition.

We don't celebrate on 25th as a rule.