Solsticetimes

You may or may not be aware that it was the 25th day of the month of December last week, and Christmas was celebrated by a significant fraction of the humans on this planet.

Believe it or not, I've been asked several times why I, a godless heathen, take the effort to celebrate Christmas. I didn't think I needed to clarify, but here's my carefully crafted reply.

The first reason is simple. My family members are nominally Christian, and they celebrate Christmas. They'd like me to participate, so I do. It's pretty passive, really, but that's not the only reason. The second reason is that Christmas really isn't a Christian festival any more.

Christmas is so relentlessly secularised (by way of commercialisation, unfortunately) that any original religious context is virtually absent. Occasionally I go to church on the 24th or the 25th, but it's just observance of ritual. I don't really think that god is up there to care one way or another. But it's nice to observe ritual once in a while, because we humans are social beings, and ritual keeps us together and makes us feel good.

We all celebrate Halloween, even though none of us (well, few of us anyway) actually believe in ghosts and ghouls. The ritual itself breeds camaraderie and togetherness, even though no one actually believes in the things that led to the festival and its rituals. I even endorse burning effigies Guy Fawkes in November, even though he certainly doesn't deserve the hatred that such a ritual implies. It's just ritual - the original meaning, legitimate or not, gone regardless.

And it's not as though the Christians are the only ones who celebrate in midwinter anyway. The date was set because of pre-existing pagan festivals like the Roman festival of the Rising of the Unconquered Sun. The solstice seems like a fitting time to get together and celebrate.

When I celebrate on the 25th of December, I am not really celebrating the birth of J.C. I'm celebrating because why the hell not? An annual time to give and receive gifts and spread goodwill sounds good whatever the justification.

Even in spite of the commercialised nature of modern Christmas and its promotion of consumer culture, I still think it is important. If the feeling is behind the gifts you give and receive, then who is to say that they are illegitimate?

The origins of the festival, and what other people think of it, are secondary to what it represents now, to us as individuals.

Christmas Eve Sunset by subadei