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?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tió_de_Nadal

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caganer

No religion here
It's just a cultural festival now isn't it? I would have said it's a minority of people that actually have religion involved based on anecdotal evidence but would be interested to know the stats.
I like carols at kings, I'll go and watch the DC in their nativity and we might go to a carol service at church too. We read the nativity story but it's just a story like all the other Christmas books we read.
It's a lovely time to celebrate love, family and time together.

Heathen feasting day here too. Religious cards go at the top of the cardholder under the ribbon - the imagery is just irrelevant to my celebration and doesn't mean anything to me.

My girlfriend is pagan and I was surprised that she was surprised that there's no baby Jesus in my house at Christmas. She celebrates the solstice fully, and then low-key celebrates Christmas Day as Jesus's birthday.

She finds it a bit trying that I have all the spirituality of a stick.

We'll be going to church, listening to both traditional carols and secular music of the season, and sending Christmas cards, some of which might have a religious theme (yes, possibly even the three kings on camels!)

Also very happy to have a Christmas tree, so thanks to the pagans for that one

I'm Heathen/Pagan, but the funny thing is that to me a tree has a lot more to do with a cultural celebration of Christmas than it has anything to do with my religion. Poor Christmas trees, neither fish nor fowl in the winter season religious symbol department. Wreaths, on the other hand, very, very Pagan.

Obviously, I celebrate Christmas as a cultural holiday. I also celebrate Hanukkah (I was raised in a mixed-faith family culture), which to be honest resonates more with me than Christmas does on a spiritual level.

I am a born again Christian and Jesus is very important to us. We got to the Christmas Eve service and other Christmas themed services religiously!

As a child Christmas was a huge holiday, but my mother is an atheist... it felt very two faced

lorelei, I thinks it's lovely that christmas is such a special time for you.

Why do you feel that an atheist celebrating christmas is "two faced"?

Why is it two-faced? We have a festival which is part pagan, part Christian, and part made-up traditions which have been developed since. Was Jesus really born on the 25th December? Nope. Do most of the things now associated with celebrating Christmas have much to do with Jesus? Nope. Are most people in this country actually Christians? Nope. Why on earth is it two-faced as a non-Christian to take part in the main annual festival of your country?

Also, while many of the bits and bobs are non religious hang-ons (trees, food etc) it would not have persisted so strongly until now without the church making it the celebration of Jesus.

The opposite is almost certainly more true - it surely would not have persisted this long if it had remained only a religious festival, since most people in this country are not Christians (or at least certainly not actively Christian). I expect Christmas will continue to be celebrated here long after the number of Christians has finally dwindled to almost none.

Only on mumsnet would a thread be started specifically to squabble about Christmas...

I think this is a very interesting thread - we are non-believers in our household, up until the DC could make their own minds up, I did let them attend some Christian activities, services etc at church.
But they don't believe, and neither do we - all our families are practising church goers but respect our decision (i think).
We are low key at Christmas, no attendance at church or mass, but agree with other posters in that its as much a cultural holiday / celebration and time for friends and family to share in friendship and gifts, meals.

I'm probably wrong in how I felt about it, but I always believed Jesus was the reason "for the season".
Apart from immediate family we didn't have anyone else, it wasn't a social thing. More like a gift and a meal. To me, I think it's a lot more than that! It used to feel empty without Jesus' presence in our Christmas.

But that's just my two cents

The pope believes in evolution, no?

Church on Christmas Eve really is a special time for me.

Purchased two books on explaining evolution to toddlers so....no, no religious element here

Where did this attitude come from? I have noticed it a lot on mumsnet - people equating Christianity with American-style fundamentalism. I don't know any Christians who don't agree with evolution. Really bizarre.

I think it's because as a general rule, the more extreme the Christian, the more actively evangical they are.

So, if you are a science-loving, theologically sophisticated, tolerant Christian, you don't, generally, go around trying to convert everyone you meet, often in a rather insulting way. If you are a fundamentalist, you do.

So for atheists, the vast majority of their encounters with Christianity come in form of being avangelized at by fundamentalists.

Also, if you are the more theologically sophisticated sort of Christian, you have generally spent quite a long time studying the bible and religious texts, and you bring that knowledge with you and put often rather archaic terms in context. When you begin a prayer 'Our Father, who art in Heaven', you mentally add lots of footnotes to 'Father' and 'Heaven'. You think of the word 'Father' and the gender assumptions that brings and how God can also be seen as a mother etc, and of 'Heaven' not as a cloud-based land of reward for the goodies, but as a state of closeness to the divine, and a whole load of other stuff. If you haven't spent time doing that, you just hear the literal meaning of the words, in a context very different to that where they originated, and so you think that that everyone else there is also interpreting the words that way.

We're a mixed up bunch in our house.

Raised catholic. A scientist and an engineer. Lapsed (mostly due to the scandals over the years, and a healthy skepticism). But not totally non-believing either. Ill relatives in recent years, and supporting others - have kinda meant a return to a form of Catholicism/Christianity while not really being totally devout.

Anyway;
We've always had a crib - always. We got a lovely big one as a wedding present from a DGreatAunt who was a nun (our wedding was not long after Christmas) and I love that. We also have a small wooden one, and a tiny one glued into a rose-shaped ring box that DD has up in her room.

We have always done the Irish traditional Christmas Candle, lit by the youngest in the household. In our case, we've evolved my family tradition of having a family gathering to light it and to talk about the milestones of the year, with a decade of the rosary - to talking about the good and bad of the year, remembering all the extended family no longer with us, and saying a prayer together.

We go to mass on Christmas Day. Always. Even the year that DD was born on 26th, we still got to mass on Christmas morning.

I try to get to a carol service as well - the one with 9 readings and lots of carols. t doesn't always happen, but I do like to. And I also try to get to some other musical celebration, most of which involves carols rather than more secular music, in person. The chamber choir from the music conservatoire in our city does a lovely concert one lunchtime.

I nearly always manage to make time to visit the various graveyards over Christmas - for my grandparents, DH's Dad, and a few other family and friends who have died (2 graveyards in our city, and 2 more near where we grew up). And I also make time for a quiet walk in either a woods or on the beach at that time of year for some quiet contemplation.

And among the collection of Christmas books for DD, there are a couple of bible stories books with the Christmas story in it. Which are still among those she re-reads a good bit.

I'm curious about those saying that to celebrate christmas we have to be religious as it has christ in the title - do you also celebrate the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre at Easter time as she's in the title? And do you dedicate Thursday to the norse god Thor? I could go on...

Most religious people I know are 'atheists', there's lots of gods they don't believe in. I just add on one more.

However, to answer the question - I bloody love Christmas/Yule (whatever you want to call it frankly) and for me it's a celebration of mid-winter, the end of the days shortening, being with family, sharing gifts and feasting. Pretty traditional and a lot older than any modern religious connotations of the day.

I imagine an alien from another planet may struggle to make sense of christmas and find the mish mash very confusing.

We have flying reindeer, men on camels traipsing through the desert , old men climbing down chimneys, donkeys, virgin births, stockings, myrrh, bringing trees into the house, kings from the Orient.... all very odd.

if you are the more theologically sophisticated sort of Christian

You have this totally backwards.

Theologically sophisticated Christian (I don't think you're quite clear what you mean by this) could mean someone who has 'adapted' conventional Christianity a bit to reflect post-modern thinking. That's likely to be 'emerging' Christianity and it's very 'evangelical' but often in a 'seeker friendly' style that invites people to join a book club (rather than inquiring if they're 'washed in the blood') . These kinds of churches tend to be light on biblical scholarship because they emphasise what the holy spirit is doing in the here and now. In fact, some of them have ruled out the bible as having any 'relevance' to modern christianity at all. So yes, very 'sophisticated'. At best, it's making authentic Christianity relevant. At worst, it's hastily baptised self-help philosophy with dodgy music. So often light on theological understanding but very good at mentally adding bits (or redefining terms!) to make liturgy more accessible and relevant, even if they're not actually there in the prayer book.

What you could also mean by sophisticated is churches that emphasise understanding of what they believe and why - they usually have a strong emphasis on biblical scholarship and are often (but not always) more conservative. They could learn a lot from the emerging church about how to make themselves a bit more welcoming. They do their best but it's often awkward questions and holiday bible club and not much else. But make no mistake, they are often very, very sophisticated in their understanding of the bible and issues relating to their faith (although there is circular thinking at times). That's much closer to fundamentalism than the first type of Christian, though.

The only other thing I can think that you're meaning is differences in denomination - maybe you're saying that fundamentalist denominations are more bible-based and conservative in their approach to Christianity while more 'mainstream' denominations have moved away from all that, softened their stance on LBGT issues and are no longer so interested in making converts. If so, it makes absolutely no sense to suggest that this kind of Christian has greater theological understanding. They probably have a tenth of the biblical knowledge to be honest.

Sorry to sound like a know-it-all.

By 'theologically sophisticated' I wasn't really referring to a particular church or denomination, but more to writers like Jurgan Moltman, Ernst Bloch, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas F Torrance, Karl Barth and so on.

And there's nothing wrong with being a know-it-all

I think I understand - grace focused? Surprisingly similar in the basic doctrine to fundamentalists (who are in the right territory IMO, just don't quite 'get' the grace part).

Very interesting thread with some excellent arguments.

Merry Christmas / Yule / Holidays to all may you all have a loving, happy, healthy time with yours xx

Can I just say that unless you are a pagan please shut the EFF up about how Christmas is actually blah blah balh
Its all an excuse to join in and ignore that its currently the birthday party for Christ, hence CHRIST Max
He is in our house, we read the Christmas story from the bible on Christmas eve and tomorrow our grace prayers will be in celebration of his coming to earth and his extraordinary changes he made to the world.
I often think we ought to have a separate celebration nowadays as so many non Christians are celebrating other things that his birth gets lost in all the sparkle and greed.