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Atheist unite!!

Hi everyone!
How do you get on during Christmas being atheists? I guess it will depend also of the country that are you in.
The last two years have been my very best Christmas ever, because of the pandemic situation. No visitors, no happiness for some new born long time ago, no decorations...
But this year... I am already feeling afraid and drawing the worse consequences for me. It makes my cptsd symptoms getting ready to come and have a party over my bones.
What about you? What does help you to go through? I have already an stiff neck 🤦‍♀️
 
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I'm not an atheist. The history of Christmas is more complicated that "the birth of a newborn a long time ago." I think it's more an attempt by the old Catholic church to get converts by hijacking a pagan holiday. Maybe more than one pagan holiday because the winter solstice is celebrated in a fair number of cultures. The real origin has more to do with celebrating the victory of light over darkness that happens with the winter solstice. I'm not a huge fan of how the time of year has been further hijacked by commercial ventures. Personally, I celebrate the victory of light over darkness. Because I like the idea. I put up colored light as my personal attempt to brighten the darkness. Some friends and I traditionally meet up around Christmas for Chinese take out, conversation, and board games. Because it's fun. Because winter is long and dark and cold and it brightens the darkness a bit. I think it should be just fine to observe the season any way you want or not at all.
It makes my cptsd symptoms getting ready to come and have a party over my bones.
It there a direct connection between the holiday season and your trauma history?
 
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I meant to put this thread under Atheist United thread, but obviously, I haven't done right 🤔
 
How do you get on during Christmas being atheists?
Luckily it's very easy where I live in the USA because Christmas is just barely a religious holiday anymore.

Due to being a sentimental (though not religious) person, I do enjoy Christmas music still, even the Jesusy stuff. Some years I play it enough to annoy the rest of my family.

I'm sorry it's such a hard time of year for you. I hope you can get through it OK.
 
For me I definitely need something to do, which I need to have locked in ahead of time. Mostly that's because there's 2 months of meteoric build up to xmas, and that whole time I'm very aware of how much I dislike xmas.

That's tempered only marginally by the knowledge that it's the worst time of the year for people living with mental illness, which normalises the struggle for me.

This year I've managed to lock in work. When everyone else is doing their big family thing, I'll be at work, doing something I like, for at least 2 1/2 times the pay I usually get. Which seems like a win/win. My family will be pissed off I'm not there. But that's 100% their issue, not mine.

In years past, I've typically been in hospital. Aside from the decorations, it's much like any other day in hospital. And I like that approach - because it really is just another day, and it only has the significance that we give it ourselves.

If I wasn't working, I'd possibly spend a small amount of time with family. But then I'd either go somewhere with doggo that he likes (probably the beach), then have something ready to binge on the couch, complete with pizza and drinks and jimjams. Something I can look forward to, that will be both distracting and relaxing.

ETA One thing I definitely won't do is wrack up an enormous credit card bill buying shit people neither want, nor need, as though that's some kind of 'tradition' that's worth a damn!! Anyone who gets anything from me? It will be (1) cheap, and (2) bought from a charity as a fundraising exercise.
 
if the holidays bring my family together its a good thing in my book. who cares if it is based on stories that have been told in limited languages and translated into prose intended to keep us in line? whats so awful about happines and togetherness loosely based on what is at best well meaning propaganda?
I have traditions and as i live longer they become more meaningful and fun, things like passing on any gift i can monetize to any charity that has a benefactor that will match donations, and feeding all of the family dogs braunschweiger sausage, the best thing a dog ever ate evidently. Their love is for sale and i buy it annually. And i love a good grade school christmas program, i feel robbed if i cant get to at least one.
 
I am an atheist, mostly due to religious trauma. I do love Christmas though. In my household, there are many decorations, lights, baked goods, etc. None of them are about the fictional baby. They are about the fictional jolly, fat man!
 
There's a group of Catholic missionaries that rents space near my son's high school and who regularly tempt the kids in with snacks. My son loves snacks so would go in, ignoring the Jesus talks that were also provided for free. Until the day a couple of weeks ago where a missionary girl got a little too chummy with him and took him and some other kids across town in her car.

Luckily, my wife was monitoring him on her phone and saw that he was NOT where he was supposed to me. She and I were never contacted and they had no sort of waiver for my son signed by us. Missionary Girl did everything wrong.

The upshot is the missionary girl will probably be fired, and the missionary group is now banned from bringing in any kids from our son's school and may have to leave the neighborhood altogether.👍

My wife isn't an atheist, but she's Jewish and she took what could have been interpreted as the kidnapping of our son very, very personally. They're very lucky we chose not to get the cops involved. If that girl had wanted to sexually abuse my son, nothing would have stopped her at all.

Missionary work is evil.
 
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