Christmas

I am not a fan of Christmas.  I don't have a huge problem with it I just find that as a holiday it has WAY too much build up around it. That being said there are things I like about Christmas and I have some very fond memories of the holiday.  These have lead me to make it special in my own way as I choose to define it.

I remember fondly singing in choirs for Christmas concerts.  I loved singing in choirs, i don't get the chance much anymore and above all I loved singing old school traditional Christmas music.  None of this "let it snow" "it's cold outside"  "frosty the snowman" crap.  I'm talking about old school, full orchestra, Westminster Abby style Chorale arrangements that were written to honor a non-existent god.  Long after my discovery of and belief in Atheism I still love that stuff.   What's more I find that so do a bunch of my Atheist friends. The traditions I grew up with around Christmas were choir concerts and Christmas eve services. 
There was something magical about the candlelit church full of crappy singers belting out Old English Methodist hymns and sitting there listening to our pastor (Pastor Al)  give a sermon that quite literally might as well have come from Garrison Keillor.  I participated in this ritual until I was 24 and Pastor AL retired and was replaced by an incredibly boring old lady who had a seemingly endless series of pointless anecdotes about her grandkids asking what size shoe god wears.
The point is long after I stopped believing in this crap I still found it sacred (I'm going to co-opt theist terms until they bow to my definitions dammit).  Not in the god ordained way but simply as it was immensely special to me on a personal level. 
It seems that a lot of the Atheists I know also have a fondness for Christmas or whatever "screw you winter" holiday they grew up celebrating.  The lights are pretty, the Church music when performed well is beautiful and emotionally moving, and the parties are a fun excuse to dress up which (as a fat guy)  is about the best way to make me look sexy.  The people who never seem to be able to fathom how we can still celebrate are the Christians.  So here's essentially the long and the short of it. 

Jesus is not the reason for the season.  In fact there is very little historical evidence of in what month Jesus was born and what there is points to sometime vaguely springy.  The church upon being adopted by the Roman Empire realized that nobody was gonna buy this if they had to give up the pagan celebrations that they loved so much and got them so much time off of work (this didn't really apply to slaves).  So they started moving holidays around.  HMMMMM we need and early winter holiday...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS.  In fact the only date that is really specifically mentioned in the Bible is the crucifixion and resurrection correspond with
Passover.  Beyond that it's guesswork from a pre calendar society.  So basically Christmas as we know it is way less specifically meaningful to Jesus then it is to the church, and since Atheists have been around forever, my people have WAY more historical right to this holiday than the Christians do...but we're willing to share because we're nice like that. 

p.s.  This was more of a rant than I intended but that can happen...it's a blog