and I'm pagan.

Thought so.

They dig the bling, those people.

I assume the cigarettes were lost in the editing process.

i hate it
i hate it
i hate it

They get on my nerves every other day of the year that I have to deal with them. I'm supposed to pretend to like them on Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day? Why?

to me.

Not sure if the question was for us.

so forget about the gifts kids.

there will be DUers who go to great lengths to crap all over it.

Same for candidates. Or food. Or place of residence. Or anything else.

I don't care about the religious aspect or the commercial aspect. I like having my whole family together, cooking for them, laughing, listening to the Beatles and singing along, tracking Santa on the NORAD site for my nephew, sharing libation and just having a great time.

I like what we do at Christmas.

I don't like to be in the business of taking happiness away from others.

I'm smart enough to not let commercialism ruin the holiday that I happen to like. I even liked the holidays during some very dark financial days that made me lean towards hating it.

For millions (maybe billions) of people around Christmas is NOT just another day. Those that choose not to celebrate it, (perhaps the person you are responding to) would have to agree-- it is not just another day. I don;t know why posts as such would pop up. I tend to wonder if these posts are meant to just shut down the happiness it might bring people? (I don't know, I am curious)

I celebrate the holiday. How I celebrate is between me and my loved ones (also known as the people I choose to celebrate with)

It doesn't mean that I don't appreciate and love them all year long, but it's definitely a time when everyone has the time to get together and love on each other.

It's not about gifts, it's about being together and celebrating loved ones.

Getting together, buying/making and giving a family member something special. The kids getting all excited about Santa, etc. Love it. I even like the music! LOL. But it holds no sacred significance for me at all.

I think my daughter was 11 when she asked me if I had any religious beliefs. I said, " Remember how when you were little, you believed in Santa? And then you grew up? Christmas is still awesome, right? Well, I have more reason to believe in Santa than I so in Jesus. One day I grew up and realized that life would still be awesome even if I didn't still believe in make-believe."

The holiday for me is not any other day but important connection with family and friends.

I don't celebrate the birth of Jesus, if I was a big C Christian I would even less as the important part was his life and resurrection, not being born.

I celebrate Dark Time of the year, doing nice things for and with family and friends, but it doesn't have to be on Dec 25. Just sometime around there and done every year so as to not let those connections be missed for too long.

I like the lights and trees and a small amount of the music. I like giving gifts and seeing people's reactions (I guess I'm a selfish gift-giver in that way.) I guess I like it the way I like Thanksgiving.

I'm non-religious to the point of atheism, too.

You don't have to be a national to take part in most people's national holidays, which Thanksgiving is. You don't have to be religious to take part in most religious holidays.

It's just taking part, enjoying that you can be part, and that's it. If you made something more of national or religious holidays, I fear you are the one that has no idea what they actually mean.

It's family, friendship and coming together.

Not sure why.

I love Christmas, the holiday side and the religious side. Love the lights, the music. Always seemed to be a time when people could set aside all the negative they carry and are surrounded by, and just be joyous and full of cheer, if even only for the sake of being joyous and full of cheer.

Honestly, what would be left if we just did away with all of these traditions/rituals/holidays etc.? Just more days to work? The corporatists would be more than glad to take away the days off for Christmas and New Years.

I like Christmas holiday season because it's a break from routine which we all need every so often. It's a dark time of year and the lights and foods and drink and getting together and the music - all of it are something to break up the winter. I even enjoy going to a religious performance such as Handel's Messiah. I don't have to be religious or Christian or anything to be awestruck by the beauty of some churches that are very old and have amazing architecture.

... in a place no one has ever heard of Christmas. I'd share fish I caught and cooked.

My parents retired and escaped to that kind of life. Their "Christmas Trees" are pieces of driftwood decorated with handmade ornaments and Christmas cards from family, friends, and neighbors...

Yeah, I know what this Christmas Holiday is about. It's the great party before all the Northern Europeans start stacking up their old and infirm like Popsicles in the shed waiting to bury them come spring in the rain and the mud.

We don't have a birth certificate for Jesus, don't know the date of Conception when the Virgin Mary exclaimed "OH GOD!."

I try not to be a drag everyone else down during the Christmas Holidays, but it ain't easy.

In my personal universe I don't like to buy stuff unless I must, and I don't like people buying stuff for me.

I like to find stuff. I like to make stuff. If somebody finds stuff or makes stuff and gives it to me as a gift, that's okay too. But please, don't buy me stuff, unless I NEED it. (That would be food, shelter, or medicine. Those I've got now, so I don't NEED them.)

I've made my peace best I can with the Holiday, often cooking Christmas dinner.

Receiving or purchasing "gifts" some random stranger made, perhaps some wage slave in China, just makes me feel sad and cold.

actually work on that day? Very few, I suspect.

I have always had a job that involves working holidays and weekends. So I have worked my share and then some. Just got off an eleven hour day on Thanksgiving. I don't always have a lot of holiday spirit.

I am planning to retire in October, 2015, and so after that I will never work another holiday again. Hooray!

We like to end the year with those we love most, have fun together, make new memories and plans to see each other again.

Even if the original christian dogma aren't relevant, we certainly don't mind toasting to Jesus and his teachings. I myself think the world would look a lot better if christians had taken pains to just follow Jesus' actual words and not the words of the rest of their 'holy' compendium of writers.

It should be Happy Solstice! We need to take back the meaning of the holiday instead of glorifying some fictitious character. AKA Jesus.

a year and half more here at home. The she transfers to a university on the other side of the state. You better believe either she will be coming home or I will be going to see her on Thanksgiving and Christmas and whatever other holiday I can see her. Same goes for my son. I could care less about the presents. I just want to be able to see my kids.

We should have more. Everybody should get more time at home and to hang out with our friends. Paid.

family, food cooking in the kitchen, its great. my favorite time of the year

that's why I volunteer to work it, so someone else can be off work

Several factors over time have made me feel this way:

- The fact that I've missed so many over the past 25+ years by having to work on most of them because my workplace is 24/7/365 and the only way you get it off is if it happens to fall on your regular days off. At first it seemed crazy to be at work during the queen mother of holidays ( especially if 3rd shift ) but over time resentment gave way to reality and before long before I just didn't give a shit about it any more.

- The social pressure so many feel to prepare for it ( "gotta do this", "gotta do that", "gotta make sure that...." and so forth ) boils over and ended up stressing me out. A couple of good long time friends ( and their spouses ) seem to have given in totally to this "vibe" over the years and when I visit them around the end of november and seeing their trees already up I'm finding myself either biting my tongue or trying to be snarky yet tactful of how crass I think it is to erect christmas trees the day after thanksgiving.

- The utterly crass commercialization, in public, and in the media disgusts me. I don't watch much TV but when I'm around other's sets ( mostly tuned to network mainstream programming ) the ads and come-ons are absolutely brutal to endure. Makes my skin crawl.

Lest I come off as a bitter scrooge, there ARE a few times here and there I can enjoy a good christmas get-together with the right ( like minded ) people, places and situations that give me that warm special feeling I used to have about it when I was a kid. Not too often though.

but I am Jewish.

That said, for those for whom it has a deep spiritual meaning, do enjoy.

...and give them back as an adult.

we would fill the bottom of the tree with lots and lots of gifts. It was as much fun for us to watch them open them as it was for them. For me, Christmas is about children. A time of wonder, imagination, and joy. I also like to pick up a few extra gifts for the toy drives. Christmas if for all children, not just those that can afford it.

Why wait to celebrate? I try to do a good turn daily a kind word, a small gift, whatever I have I share.

what has been a co-opted celebration over the centuries. First it was christians co-opting a nonchristian day of celebration, now it's a corporate/capitalist thing... all to give money to someone I despise while pretending it was a thoughtful act toward someone I care about. Right.

I observe the day of solstice and call my family and that's about it, just a day among 364 others in a calendar year. If people like to feed the corporate beast to make their loved ones feel good, that's what they're going to do... seemingly mindless of how they perpetuate a bad social situation by doing so under the guise of a religious celebration.

I don't disagree with the rhetorical reasons given for being with family and friends and attempts at good will toward others, I just think it should be a daily endeavor not a reason to exponentially over-feed the corporate beast over the few days at the beginning of winter.

Hope everyone enjoys their families and friends while they have a chance though.