How do you explain / celebrate Christmas if you are not Christian??

[migandtig]

I don't want to start a big religious debate, or accuse anyone of hypocracy, but my DC is 2 this year and has started to take an interest in Christmas, but we aren't bringing him up Christian.
I was brought up Christian, and I believe because it's part of who I am, and it's been in me since birth; but I don't I have a conviction strong enough to impart it on anybody else. DH on the other hand was brought up in a 70s free thinking household, and subsequently went on to become quite a serious scientist and agnostic.
He respects my views (we were married in Church), and I have read some Richard Dawkins and accept his view that if I hadn't been taught it as a child maybe I wouldn't believe it now. So we have agreed that we will leave our DCs to be free thinking, and if they want to take up a faith later they can
So, to cut a long story short, if you aren't a Christian house, what are you celebrating at Christmas, and what are the messages you give to your DCs ?

My dd is 4 and as far as she is concerned Christmas is singing Christmas songs, having Christmas parties and getting a stocking from Father Christmas. At that age they really don't need an explanation.

I am an atheist, DH is non committal but would pray if his plane fell from the sky!, and we talk about Jesus and the nativity and winter festivals and Father Christmas. WE talk about family and kindness and giving, this year I am spending an hour helping at the homeless hostel on Christmas day so our dcs appreciate how lucky they are.

We haven't really needed to explain much so far (DS is 4). As we're atheist we don't give him any religious explanations, but remember these are spurious anyway - christmas (by other names) existed before christianity and was taken over by the church to make christian dogma easier for people to accept.

So if I had to explain what it's for I would say it's a winter festival where you have a party and lights to celebrate the signs that summer will come back (ie a few days after the shortest day, the winter solstice - xmas falls then because that was its origin). I am not a solstice-celebrating pagan type either - but that is the truth about where it comes from so seems a reasonable explanation.

We're happy for DS to partake in all the santa/advent/nativity play etc rituals that go on because it's all fun and of course he wants to join in, and xmas is a huge mishmash of different religious traditions. I am a bit if I hear anyone tell him that "baby jesus" is "the true meaning of christmas" because that is, I'm afraid, a pile of bollocks - but I just intend to be factual about it and tell him the jesus stuff is just what some people believe etc.

We are atheist and dd goes to a C of E school so I'm sure she is doing the whole 9 yards there. But in any case, we have a couple of nativity stories she reads (Xmas presents from religios friends) - I think it's important to know the story - but in our house it's just that - a story with some basis in historical fact but highly embellished. I am quite keen that she understands how religion impacts our culture.

We are Jewish and don't really do anything ourselves for Christmas. We talk about it, dd knows the Jesus story, knows about Santa, but its just something that other people do.

I am not a christian - my mum is non practising C of E. We grew up with father christmas and presents and christmas lunch in India. We were the envy of all our friends as we were the only ones visited by Santa!
It's a day to spend with your family and have fun and give/recieve presents.
Now we do it for ds and dd in the UK( as part of a hindu household). Santa, Christmas tree, stockings and the lunch. Oh and christmas carols. I love them.
You could throw in the christmas spirit bit and do something for someone else. My kids get to choose which toys they are giving to the charity shop. This could evolve as they get older. When I was little we used to give things to a local orphanage.
On the philosophy side, I can still celebrate baby Jesus' birthday ,asa great man, even if I do not believe that he is the route to salvation...

MadameDu Bain, could you clarify this please . . .

If I hear anyone tell him that "baby jesus" is "the true meaning of christmas" because that is, I'm afraid, a pile of bollocks

I just mean that the birth of Jesus may be a driving force behind Christianity, but is not the explanation for Christmas. It's well known that Christ's birth was probably not around that time of year and that the Christian church adapted winter festivals into a christian celebration to ease the process of conversion.

The reason we have a massive party just after the solstice is because it is a celebration of getting past the shortest day and lowest point of winter and anticipating the return of spring - and that is one reason why lights are a traditional part of the festivities. That is the true meaning of this celebration even if it does now have a Christian name and story attached.

and I have no problem with it being THE day or not.
My dad didn't know his birthday so we chose one for him and celebrated on that day. As far as we were concerned that was his birthday.

MadameDuBain, it sounds as if you are celebrating solstice or Yule, rather than Christmas. Christmas to some people is indeed a Christian holiday, celebrating the birth of Christ, but I accept as valid your point about the cultural merging with other pre-Christian traditions. There does seem to exist a secular Christmas now which indeed has little to do with baby Jesus.

Migandtig, is your question really about why do people who aren't Christian celebrate Christmas? It seems if you know why you are doing it yourself, it should be simple to explain to the dc.

We celebrate Christmas and the 12 days to Theophany as a Christian holiday. I've always liked the 3 Kings story. We don't exchange gifts, we do have a tree, which Jewish DP insists on because he never had one as a kid.

I am Christian, so I know I'm not in your category. But I think what a lot of people in this country do is to celebrate Christmas as a general family celebration, some with an added element of "being nice to people", such as giving to charity or helping out at hostels etc. You don't need to go out of your way to explain what Christmas is about, but if your DC ask, then you can explain that people have always celebrated in the middle of winter, and that because lots of people in this country are Christians, we call it Christmas, and some people celebrate the birth of Jesus then.

He/she is likely to get quite a lot of the "vaguely Christian" message about Christmas from playgroups etc anyway, and then school later. But you can decide how much you want to say "I believe..." and how much "some people believe..."

If pressed, I'd say we celebrate the winter solstice and have a festival to cheer up the dark days in the middle of winter. And that this is common in many societies, and has pre-Christian origins as well as Christian roots.

But as it is, given that it's normal to celebrate Christmas in the UK, we just go along with the nativity stories and Father Christmas stories and trees and parties and Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman stories, along with most of the population.

My parents who are non-Christians make a big deal of the pre-Christian traditions associated with Christmas -though they do have a crib too, because it's tradition. We spend Christmas with them, and as the only Christian in the family I go alone to the Christmas service and obviously view the crib and the carol singing in a different light. Dcs know they can go along with either take on it.

MadameDu Bain I think you would get on very well with my DH!

Lots of food for thought, I like the idea of a winter festval and lots of traditions; and as DC does have at least 1 christian parent, it could be a chance to also throw in that "some people - like mummy - believe..." so he has a starting point into religion and society (without being "indoctrinated" as DH would put it)

Mind you I don't I need to worry this year, but it got me thinking.

Dh is a tree-hugging winter-solstice type. I'm just a plain atheist.

Sweetgrapes - my Pakistani bfather has a made-up brithday too. None of his siblings know the exact day they were born.

We're plain, Dawkins-type atheists here, but we live in yurt valley, tree-hugger central round here, which does mean there are a lot of solstice festivities, our local organic farm (where we built, collectively, a community yurt) has a winter festival. so the dc get a choice of scientifically-oriented atheism or wishy washy tree hugging pantheism, or militant evangelical christianity from their grandparents, or vague wishy washy christianity from the other grandparents.

Lots of conflicting and mixed messages for the dc to chew over there really.

I'm not a Christian but my dad is CofE and my dh a Roman Catholic.

I love Christmas for my little one even though I personally think the basis for it is political. No harm in it at all. Jesus is a positive figure. I was bought up in the tradition.

This year I discovered halloween. I'm ancient and we'd never done anything about it in my household but I'm going to go trick or treating with little one next year. Loving it. No harm in that far as I'm concerned.

I was brought up in a Christian country so I don't have any problems 'celebrating' Christmas much as I don't have any issues celebrating Diwali - neither am I a practising Hindu although bought up in the tradition.

More positivity the better.

where i live in london, most people of christian ancestry would not describe themselves as christian anyway - most families celebrate christmas in terms of overeating, presents, visiting family etc. even our muslim neighbours from across the road

I would say that every country likes to have festivals of light, and that it is nice to brighten up the dark winter. I would explain that there was always a midwinter festival and that historically Christians have made it their own. Get a book of Christmas customs from the library and read it together to find out where all the customs come from-they are not all Christian. I would emphasise that it is a time to think of others, which is the Christian message, but you can still think of others without being a Christian.

Christmas is part of the culture of our country. We are not religious, but will be following our family traditions for Christmas.

We live within the culture of our society, which is why we celebrate Christmas, by seeing family we haven't for ages and eating too much pie and giving presents to each other.

I've never seen the need to try to impress that the baby Jesus, Father Christmas myths are true, but this won't stop us having a lovely time.

Well, I'd go with the winter festival explanation, but just say it means different things to different people - so for some it's about Jesus, some winter solstice, some about having a nice celebration with the people you love to brighten the dark months.

I am not a Christian, never have been, DH ditto.

Quite simply, there is absolutely no need to explain Christmas - it just happens! Small children basically accept the world around them as the norm. (Which is a fact that can be used for good or ill, I think.) So there is nothing to explain about getting together with family and swapping presents and eating fabulous amounts of food and playing games. It just is.

Once the Nativity is mentioned, then the questions start, and I have just said that some people believe that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of this bloke called Jesus who is reputed to have said wise things (and that's what church is about). And that different cultures celebrate things at this time of year because it's dark and cold and people need cheering up. Hanukkah...Diwali...Yule...you don't need to talk a lot about any of them very much. DS did ask me what I believe, and I said I believe what Dr Ian Stewart (who did a tv series that ds loves) said about the creation of the Earth and that we should all be good and kind and get on with things without hurting others.