this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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I celebrate Christmas for my children so they don't miss out. Does that count? I'm also very routine. I do the same thing the same way, every day. That might tie in to rituals? Hell if I know.
Rituals don't have to be religious or related to religion. Daily regular, repeating activities are rituals - even without any link to a religion.
Does your Christmas have a direct relation to Christianity? It can be celebrated as a social and societal construct, possibly with imagery and rituals, with or without actual intention and relation to the religion.
Personally, I don't think I've ever experienced Christmas as a celebration of god and Christ in the direct and factual sense. Thinking back, we had the stories of birth and my mother even tried some singing with us. I don't think I've ever taken the stories for fact though. It's a setting, a story, a celebratory setup. (But I wonder if that may be back-looking reinterpretation with a changed mindset. It certainly wasn't something that stuck over time and after early childhood.)
That's pretty much why these traditions are there, just like people don't actually believe in Santa similarly you don't have to believe in Jesus to enjoy a winter holiday/break and excuse to see friends and family
Christmas was a Roman holiday called Saturnalia before the Christians reappropriated it.
I don't place any relious meaning on Christmas, but I celebrate it because humans have been celebrating roughly the same event at roughly the same time every year for over 2000 years.