Let me point out that not having a holiday when everyone around you does, and, in particular, not getting presents when everyone around you does, is not going to make your kids happy.
There is a reason why e.g. Chanukkah stopped being a minor Jewish holiday and became a major Jewish holiday.
You could raise your kids entirely in atheism and forget about Christmas altogether.
Let me point out that not having a holiday when everyone around you does (...) is not going to make your kids happy.
Poland is one of very few countries in the world, where you can be sentenced to prison for hurting somebody’s religious feelings. Of course, only catholic religious feelings count. It’s a country where even atheists baptize their children, because everybody does so. My son is the first child in the history of his school to not attend religion classes (and those are not religion classes, those are catholicism classes, and they are organized by the Church, so the teachers are not really subordinates of the headmasters).
Until we move out of the country, there is no way to avoid Christmas. This is of course my particular situation, but I can easily imagine more people in similar “trouble”.
I don’t see much need to avoid Christmas. It’s really an old pagan holiday, celebrating the winter solstice, that the Church took over and adapted for its purposes (a very common move for the Catholic Church, by the way). No one who looked into the matter thinks Jesus was actually born at the end of December and I think it’s viable to accent the “holiday” aspects (the tree, the lights, etc.) and downplay the religious aspects (the Advent, the Nativity displays, etc.)
I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness (whom do not celebrate most American/Christian holidays) and me having to opt out of holiday activities at school was a constant huge embarrassment that shaped my social world in negative ways to this day, decades later.
You could have an “atheist Hanukkah” and choose New Year’s Eve or the winter solstice as a gift-giving occasion, although new year’s may have some communist connotations and the solstice probably has some pagan connotations.
(Read “may” as ~40% confident and “probably” as ~70% confident.)
Let me point out that not having a holiday when everyone around you does, and, in particular, not getting presents when everyone around you does, is not going to make your kids happy.
There is a reason why e.g. Chanukkah stopped being a minor Jewish holiday and became a major Jewish holiday.
Poland is one of very few countries in the world, where you can be sentenced to prison for hurting somebody’s religious feelings. Of course, only catholic religious feelings count. It’s a country where even atheists baptize their children, because everybody does so. My son is the first child in the history of his school to not attend religion classes (and those are not religion classes, those are catholicism classes, and they are organized by the Church, so the teachers are not really subordinates of the headmasters).
Until we move out of the country, there is no way to avoid Christmas. This is of course my particular situation, but I can easily imagine more people in similar “trouble”.
I don’t see much need to avoid Christmas. It’s really an old pagan holiday, celebrating the winter solstice, that the Church took over and adapted for its purposes (a very common move for the Catholic Church, by the way). No one who looked into the matter thinks Jesus was actually born at the end of December and I think it’s viable to accent the “holiday” aspects (the tree, the lights, etc.) and downplay the religious aspects (the Advent, the Nativity displays, etc.)
That’s not unusual.
Ok, that part is unusual. In most countries it’s only Muslim feelings.
I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness (whom do not celebrate most American/Christian holidays) and me having to opt out of holiday activities at school was a constant huge embarrassment that shaped my social world in negative ways to this day, decades later.
You could have an “atheist Hanukkah” and choose New Year’s Eve or the winter solstice as a gift-giving occasion, although new year’s may have some communist connotations and the solstice probably has some pagan connotations.
(Read “may” as ~40% confident and “probably” as ~70% confident.)