I've never heard of this book, but yes, we do celebrate "secular Christmas". We put up a tree, do Santa Claus, etc. I've told my 6yo that for Christians, the holiday is very important and sometimes treated much more seriously because it celebrates the birth of Jesus, who is very important to Christians. So far he has not asked me to elaborate on that.
We also celebrate "secular Easter" with a bunny and basket. It was hilarious to hear my atheist sister explain the story of Easter to my then-7yo niece and see the look of incredulity on my niece's face 😆
There is nothing wrong with explaining different religions to your kids. It builds understanding and respect.
We talk about all different kinds of holiday traditions and experiences. We live in a nation full of different cultures so it makes sense that we are going to experience them together.
We don't do Easter because I personally can't separate the day with a very holy day for many Christians and I teach respect for the faith of others. We absolutely take advantage of the 50% off candy the day after, though! Christmas is such a mish-mash of traditions from many different cultures and some of those pre-date Christianity. It's just a nice time to be together with friends and family and have some fun. We "do" Santa but my kids also know we are pretending and it's so much fun to pretend. It also helps because another rule is we don't ruin other people's fun, so they aren't going to tell any other kids there isn't a Santa.
We are homeschooling and one of the things I love about our history curriculum is the exposure to so many different faiths and cultures and the why behind them.
It’s new, which is why people are whipped up I guess. I just assumed Christmas belongs to all of us, so I was surprised to see so many “Christmas is not secular, it’s only a Christian holiday” comments.
That wording about Jesus is really helpful, thank you!
My favourite story of my niece was from when she was 3 or 4. My brother in law had told her about the birth of baby Jesus for Christmas, then the following Easter about the crucifixion, etc.
My niece, horrified, told my mum, "They put baby Jesus on the cross! And they put nails in his hands! Finger nails!"
Anyways, we do the same thing so far, re Christmas and Easter. My munchkin is 21mo so we have a while before we start getting into how other people celebrate etc. But I suspect we'll do the same.
Our Christmas views are honestly best summed up by the claymation Christmas episode of Community. It’s about how it’s important to be kind even in the darkest coldest time of year. How generosity and kindness can change a whole outlook. That kind of stuff. Jesus and Santa are characters from stories that reinforce that lesson. Some people think they’re real, we don’t.
Yeah that's a bit weird. We celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. We do all the same things for the most part that everyone else does, we just leave Jesus and religion out of it.
Just read about it right along side the story of Odysseus, with the cyclops and the sheep and the sirens. And at the same time teach respect about the opinions of others. Just like you don’t make fun of someone whose favorite color is blue, you don’t make fun of someone’s favorite mythology.
We celebrate secular Christmas. My oldest kid is 7 and we’ve just now started talking about “Some people believe it was the birthday of an important kind man named Jesus Christ, and that’s why it’s on this day. But for all of us, it’s about celebrating love and kindness and family and winter.”
Yup, just Santa and the non religious stuff. We didn't bring religion out until they were a little older, they're teens now, and have lots of questions about my upbringing (catholic).
They think I am making things up half of the time, I just had to explain the rapture to them, since that was a recent thing, and explaining it to 2 teens with little to no religious exposure was... a fun experience honestly.
The same way we celebrate Easter, Eid, Diwali, etc.
Holiday themed sweet treats/gifts/etc
We celebrate the holy days of all our neighbours because we like them and we support our fellow humans.
Religious types have to pick only one set of holy days and miss out on the others.
We get more fun times and treats because we care about the people not the myths behind them
We will be celebrating Christmas in a secular sense, however I really enjoy the Christian carols so I'll definitely be singing/playing them. Last year we did hit up a local church for their tree lighting and there was a bit of Jesus which was acceptable for me because I knew it would be present in a church lol.
I grew up Anglican and while I am an atheist now, I would be fine to teach my daughter the story of Christian Christmas when she's older. I would be clear that it is a story and some people believe it to be real, and we should respect that, but mummy does not. I would not however buy that book, and I tend to get rid of/don't buy obviously religious literature.
So long as people aren't pushing their beliefs or traditions on me I'm happy. My dad is very Catholic and we have religious/spiritual family members so it'll be something we see a lot. The ones close to us know that I don't consider myself religious but are likely not sure to what extent. My daughter can choose what she wants to believe.
Yup we celebrate it because it wasn't always Christmas, and like a lot of things (Easter) it was co-opted by Christianity. For us it's a time for family and friends, hanging out, and some gift giving. don't need any religion involved.
Growing up in Ireland we did explain it to our child, what it means to various groups, where it originated from, the various different traditions that merged over time to be what it is now.
Christmas has been so commercialized by capitalism that I never encounter the religious aspect of it organically in the wild. Jesus is only ever mentioned as tHe ReAsOn fOr tHe sEaSoN on social media for virtue signaling purposes by judgy maga mother's-in-law.
If you can answer the question "well, as an atheist why do you celebrate Christmas?" The answer to that is what you tell your child.
For us, basically it's fun. Humans have always had celebrations of this sort during the winter months to appreciate family and decorate with lights during the darkness, etc. I like those things. Let's do it!
Anyway, why do you actually celebrate Christmas if you don't believe in Christianity? That's what you tell your kids.
Yes, we celebrate secular Christmas and Easter too.
Jesus or Christianity was never part of Christmas or the holiday season growing up. Many of the traditions do not Christian origins.
Christmas, in our home, has the magical part of Santa with a heavy influence of family, love, and start of a new year and season for us.
There’s a tree. Present are exchanged. Santa comes. We show our love and appreciation for friends and family. We feast and celebrate the previous year. We set intentions and goals for the upcoming year.
We simply enjoy that magical time of year, completely void of religion other than a bit of educating my children on how some religions choose to celebre are that time of year.
We have a nativity and learn the story of Christmas as a legend/folk tale that explains why our neighbors are into the holiday. We love the trappings and generosity and joy of Christmas and find the virgin birth can be passed over pretty much.
My kids are older teens now, but... We treat that season as the light we need in the dark parts of winter. We talked as kid about the many traditions this time of year and how a lot of the holidays in the northern hemisphere include light. We basically celebrate Yule more than Christmas, but it's nothing formal. Just a lot of togetherness, comforting light in the dark evenings, and good food from the Solstice to the New Year
We celebrate Christmas in a secular way, we don't talk about Jesus, but we do a tree and Santa and presents and we spend time with family. My kids are 6 and 5 and we've talked about where the holiday comes from, what the Winter Solstice is, etc. Their grandparents are christian, so we've also talked about what the holiday means in the context of christianity and about other holidays celebrated by other religions.
I cook a duck and we have presents, there is a Christmas tree (a pagan tradition) and lights. It is fun. I think a lot of "Christians" celebrate secular Christmas. Most Christians I know don't go to church, don't read the bible, don't follow their religion and the holidays are about gifts, food, and drinking.
This book is gorgeously illustrated and the stories are fun. Some are more traditional and the most popular one for my kids was a story about trolls:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196942
The Everything Seed is not a Christmas book, but we read it every solstice and stayed up late to look at stars:
When my kid was old enough to ask about religion, we basically explained that Christians celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, but you can basically do all the non-religious stuff.
"Christians believe that god decided to come down to earth in human form as a dude named Jesus. He wandered around for a while, telling people to be nice to each other, and Christians use Christmas to celebrate when Jesus was born. A lot of people celebrate Christmas traditions without doing any of the religious part, like setting up a tree, giving each other presents, and helping out families in need."
I do, I also celebrate Sausage Ostrich day, Talk Like a Pirate Day and Halloween. As an atheist I can celebrate anything for the sake of the celebration. I taught my kids to enjoy the celebration stuff, talk about why the religious stuff is bad, and to do the celebration stuff better than the religious... Make it about inclusion, fun and truth. Discard the stuff that is divisive and othering.
i was torn on this early in my kids’ lives bc we lived in the deep south where it’s happy birthday jesus day, and i did not want to be hypocritical, but ultimately it’s human nature to want to celebrate! i love christmas and we don’t do jesus , we don’t do santa , at this point we don’t even do presents , just give the kids a trip and it’s amazing. Everything i’ve learned about christmas is that christians stole it from so many other traditions and holidays , so hang up your stockings , honor Krampus, or just be the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse and make it your own.
We celebrate jul (* jólablót*), the original Norse winter festivities. The tree and decorations and food etc. have nothing to do with some fantasy figure from the Middle East...
We celebrate a secular Christmas. We also try to mix in some traditions from other cultures, so we talk about the Yul Cat and the solstice and stuff like that. We obviously don't go to church and we don't celebrate jesus's birth, but my wife's family is Christian so I'm sure it will inevitably come up and will address that when it does, but for now my oldest is three so she doesn't really care one way or the other.
I've been portraying Santa Claus for about 8 years and only once has Baby Jesus come up. It at a house party a few days before Xmas and I asked "And what happens in 3 days?", expecting "Santa!", but one child said "Jesus' birthday". I rolled with "Why yes it is. And what else happens on Xmas day?" and got the expected response.
Granted this is in one of the least religious states.
I grew up Catholic. In our house we had a tree, nothing under the tree until Christmas Day, and Santa Claus brought presents overnight. End of story. That was all Christmas was to us. I was devastated when I was finally told that Santa wasn’t real. No kid I know cares about anything else at Christmas time other than what they are going to get.
This looks like just another way to sell stuff, nothing more.
Over the years, with changing religious viewpoints, now we just trade presents. The kids have long wish lists, and they look forward to getting stuff. Even my nieces and nephews in religious households just focus on the stuff they are going to get. Christmas is just about capitalism. These people selling books are no different.
I've never heard of this book, but yes, we do celebrate "secular Christmas". We put up a tree, do Santa Claus, etc. I've told my 6yo that for Christians, the holiday is very important and sometimes treated much more seriously because it celebrates the birth of Jesus, who is very important to Christians. So far he has not asked me to elaborate on that.
We also celebrate "secular Easter" with a bunny and basket. It was hilarious to hear my atheist sister explain the story of Easter to my then-7yo niece and see the look of incredulity on my niece's face 😆
This right here.
There is nothing wrong with explaining different religions to your kids. It builds understanding and respect.
We talk about all different kinds of holiday traditions and experiences. We live in a nation full of different cultures so it makes sense that we are going to experience them together.
All of this!
We don't do Easter because I personally can't separate the day with a very holy day for many Christians and I teach respect for the faith of others. We absolutely take advantage of the 50% off candy the day after, though! Christmas is such a mish-mash of traditions from many different cultures and some of those pre-date Christianity. It's just a nice time to be together with friends and family and have some fun. We "do" Santa but my kids also know we are pretending and it's so much fun to pretend. It also helps because another rule is we don't ruin other people's fun, so they aren't going to tell any other kids there isn't a Santa.
We are homeschooling and one of the things I love about our history curriculum is the exposure to so many different faiths and cultures and the why behind them.
It’s new, which is why people are whipped up I guess. I just assumed Christmas belongs to all of us, so I was surprised to see so many “Christmas is not secular, it’s only a Christian holiday” comments.
That wording about Jesus is really helpful, thank you!
Well Christmas traditions largely come from pagan traditions, so...
Ignore the haters and do what you want. Luckily we live in a free country (at least for the moment...)
For a limited time freedom void where prohibited certain restrictions may apply
My favourite story of my niece was from when she was 3 or 4. My brother in law had told her about the birth of baby Jesus for Christmas, then the following Easter about the crucifixion, etc.
My niece, horrified, told my mum, "They put baby Jesus on the cross! And they put nails in his hands! Finger nails!"
Anyways, we do the same thing so far, re Christmas and Easter. My munchkin is 21mo so we have a while before we start getting into how other people celebrate etc. But I suspect we'll do the same.
This is what I do as well.
This is great!
Our Christmas views are honestly best summed up by the claymation Christmas episode of Community. It’s about how it’s important to be kind even in the darkest coldest time of year. How generosity and kindness can change a whole outlook. That kind of stuff. Jesus and Santa are characters from stories that reinforce that lesson. Some people think they’re real, we don’t.
I couldn’t add text to my post, but this book really weirds me out and the comments seem crazy. I didn’t know Christmas could be so divisive.
Do you live in a country that is not United States?
Yeah that's a bit weird. We celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. We do all the same things for the most part that everyone else does, we just leave Jesus and religion out of it.
In much the same way that we dress up for Halloween and wear green on St Paddy’s day.
It’s a cultural holiday as much as it’s a religious one.
We do Santa and the Grinch and all the non Jesus stuff. My kid is 3.5 so it's a little different for us; she has no concept of Christianity.
Her school is multicultural, with a lot of Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim families in addition to secular ones.
My parents are evangelical and my in-laws are Catholic, but we've kept her away from it for now.
Just read about it right along side the story of Odysseus, with the cyclops and the sheep and the sirens. And at the same time teach respect about the opinions of others. Just like you don’t make fun of someone whose favorite color is blue, you don’t make fun of someone’s favorite mythology.
We celebrate secular Christmas. My oldest kid is 7 and we’ve just now started talking about “Some people believe it was the birthday of an important kind man named Jesus Christ, and that’s why it’s on this day. But for all of us, it’s about celebrating love and kindness and family and winter.”
Yup, just Santa and the non religious stuff. We didn't bring religion out until they were a little older, they're teens now, and have lots of questions about my upbringing (catholic).
They think I am making things up half of the time, I just had to explain the rapture to them, since that was a recent thing, and explaining it to 2 teens with little to no religious exposure was... a fun experience honestly.
The same way we celebrate Easter, Eid, Diwali, etc.
Holiday themed sweet treats/gifts/etc
We celebrate the holy days of all our neighbours because we like them and we support our fellow humans.
Religious types have to pick only one set of holy days and miss out on the others. We get more fun times and treats because we care about the people not the myths behind them
We will be celebrating Christmas in a secular sense, however I really enjoy the Christian carols so I'll definitely be singing/playing them. Last year we did hit up a local church for their tree lighting and there was a bit of Jesus which was acceptable for me because I knew it would be present in a church lol.
I grew up Anglican and while I am an atheist now, I would be fine to teach my daughter the story of Christian Christmas when she's older. I would be clear that it is a story and some people believe it to be real, and we should respect that, but mummy does not. I would not however buy that book, and I tend to get rid of/don't buy obviously religious literature.
So long as people aren't pushing their beliefs or traditions on me I'm happy. My dad is very Catholic and we have religious/spiritual family members so it'll be something we see a lot. The ones close to us know that I don't consider myself religious but are likely not sure to what extent. My daughter can choose what she wants to believe.
Yup we celebrate it because it wasn't always Christmas, and like a lot of things (Easter) it was co-opted by Christianity. For us it's a time for family and friends, hanging out, and some gift giving. don't need any religion involved.
Growing up in Ireland we did explain it to our child, what it means to various groups, where it originated from, the various different traditions that merged over time to be what it is now.
Christmas has been so commercialized by capitalism that I never encounter the religious aspect of it organically in the wild. Jesus is only ever mentioned as tHe ReAsOn fOr tHe sEaSoN on social media for virtue signaling purposes by judgy maga mother's-in-law.
If you can answer the question "well, as an atheist why do you celebrate Christmas?" The answer to that is what you tell your child.
For us, basically it's fun. Humans have always had celebrations of this sort during the winter months to appreciate family and decorate with lights during the darkness, etc. I like those things. Let's do it!
Anyway, why do you actually celebrate Christmas if you don't believe in Christianity? That's what you tell your kids.
Yes, we celebrate secular Christmas and Easter too.
Jesus or Christianity was never part of Christmas or the holiday season growing up. Many of the traditions do not Christian origins.
Christmas, in our home, has the magical part of Santa with a heavy influence of family, love, and start of a new year and season for us.
There’s a tree. Present are exchanged. Santa comes. We show our love and appreciation for friends and family. We feast and celebrate the previous year. We set intentions and goals for the upcoming year.
We simply enjoy that magical time of year, completely void of religion other than a bit of educating my children on how some religions choose to celebre are that time of year.
We have a nativity and learn the story of Christmas as a legend/folk tale that explains why our neighbors are into the holiday. We love the trappings and generosity and joy of Christmas and find the virgin birth can be passed over pretty much.
Heck yeah we do! We just don't talk about any of that Jesus stuff, which is surprisingly easy.
My kids are older teens now, but... We treat that season as the light we need in the dark parts of winter. We talked as kid about the many traditions this time of year and how a lot of the holidays in the northern hemisphere include light. We basically celebrate Yule more than Christmas, but it's nothing formal. Just a lot of togetherness, comforting light in the dark evenings, and good food from the Solstice to the New Year
I basically do it as solstice, not sure what we do soon when he’s old enough
We celebrate Christmas in a secular way, we don't talk about Jesus, but we do a tree and Santa and presents and we spend time with family. My kids are 6 and 5 and we've talked about where the holiday comes from, what the Winter Solstice is, etc. Their grandparents are christian, so we've also talked about what the holiday means in the context of christianity and about other holidays celebrated by other religions.
I cook a duck and we have presents, there is a Christmas tree (a pagan tradition) and lights. It is fun. I think a lot of "Christians" celebrate secular Christmas. Most Christians I know don't go to church, don't read the bible, don't follow their religion and the holidays are about gifts, food, and drinking.
There are a variety of books I read with kids when they were little:
We Celebrate the Light is a good one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/205062358
Christmas is about diverse reasons for celebration: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7130697
This book is gorgeously illustrated and the stories are fun. Some are more traditional and the most popular one for my kids was a story about trolls: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196942
The Everything Seed is not a Christmas book, but we read it every solstice and stayed up late to look at stars:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1886698
When my kid was old enough to ask about religion, we basically explained that Christians celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, but you can basically do all the non-religious stuff.
"Christians believe that god decided to come down to earth in human form as a dude named Jesus. He wandered around for a while, telling people to be nice to each other, and Christians use Christmas to celebrate when Jesus was born. A lot of people celebrate Christmas traditions without doing any of the religious part, like setting up a tree, giving each other presents, and helping out families in need."
I do, I also celebrate Sausage Ostrich day, Talk Like a Pirate Day and Halloween. As an atheist I can celebrate anything for the sake of the celebration. I taught my kids to enjoy the celebration stuff, talk about why the religious stuff is bad, and to do the celebration stuff better than the religious... Make it about inclusion, fun and truth. Discard the stuff that is divisive and othering.
i was torn on this early in my kids’ lives bc we lived in the deep south where it’s happy birthday jesus day, and i did not want to be hypocritical, but ultimately it’s human nature to want to celebrate! i love christmas and we don’t do jesus , we don’t do santa , at this point we don’t even do presents , just give the kids a trip and it’s amazing. Everything i’ve learned about christmas is that christians stole it from so many other traditions and holidays , so hang up your stockings , honor Krampus, or just be the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse and make it your own.
We celebrate jul (* jólablót*), the original Norse winter festivities. The tree and decorations and food etc. have nothing to do with some fantasy figure from the Middle East...
We celebrate a secular Christmas. We also try to mix in some traditions from other cultures, so we talk about the Yul Cat and the solstice and stuff like that. We obviously don't go to church and we don't celebrate jesus's birth, but my wife's family is Christian so I'm sure it will inevitably come up and will address that when it does, but for now my oldest is three so she doesn't really care one way or the other.
I've been portraying Santa Claus for about 8 years and only once has Baby Jesus come up. It at a house party a few days before Xmas and I asked "And what happens in 3 days?", expecting "Santa!", but one child said "Jesus' birthday". I rolled with "Why yes it is. And what else happens on Xmas day?" and got the expected response.
Granted this is in one of the least religious states.
I grew up Catholic. In our house we had a tree, nothing under the tree until Christmas Day, and Santa Claus brought presents overnight. End of story. That was all Christmas was to us. I was devastated when I was finally told that Santa wasn’t real. No kid I know cares about anything else at Christmas time other than what they are going to get.
This looks like just another way to sell stuff, nothing more.
Over the years, with changing religious viewpoints, now we just trade presents. The kids have long wish lists, and they look forward to getting stuff. Even my nieces and nephews in religious households just focus on the stuff they are going to get. Christmas is just about capitalism. These people selling books are no different.