You might have guessed by now that I am virtually religionless. For the most part, it doesn’t bother me. During the holidays, I celebrate the time I get to spend with my family and loved ones. I look at the Christmas season (that’s what my family celebrates, so that’s what I call it) as a time for sharing the love with your family and showing appreciation for them. Some people might be bothered by this, but whatever. It’s the way I feel and it doesn’t hurt anyone. (I even hold hands while the rest of the family says grace. It’s not a big deal for me.)
I was baptized Protestant and raised with a looser version of the religion my Mom was raised with. Dad’s family is Catholic and pretty much sticks to a looser, more relaxed version of Catholic tradition: no meat on Christmas Eve, but they don’t walk around swatting people on the head with Bibles, nor do they go to church. (Not to say that Catholics swat people with books. Or maybe some of them do. I know my 8th grade substitute teacher was always close!) My mom’s side of the family is even more relaxed. They’re Protestant, I guess, though now I think my mom’s sister, my Aunt Rikki, is more Catholic because her husband is Catholic and I’m pretty sure they baptized Katarina Catholic. (And I’m pretty sure my other aunt, Aunt Elyne, and her daughter Kate don’t celebrate any religion, either. But anyway.)
You’d think, surrounded by all of this religion, as relaxed as it is, that I would be more religious. I honestly have just never “felt” it. I experimented a little, as a kid. I looked into different religions and tried to find my niche, but nothing ever fit. I just don’t feel the presence that so many people say they feel. And that’s okay. It’s okay for you to feel it and it’s okay for me not to, as long as neither of us tries to force our beliefs on the other.
So during the holiday season, I wrap gifts for the people I love putting that love as my sole focus. I am like a kid waiting for Santa, I’m so excited to give people their gifts. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about the gifts I’ll get, too, but it’s more important for me to give. And boy do I give. Every year I try to budget and every year I end up going over. Whoops. Even though my checkbook is not thrilled, I am thrilled to see the looks on everyone’s faces when they open their gifts this year, the gifts that I handpicked to show my appreciation. To say, I love you.
And don’t mistake me for putting it all into a material perspective; I’d be fine without giving or receiving gifts. I just look at it as a time of year to share love.
That’s what my holiday season is all about.
Faith and I are pretty much the same way. We’re basically atheist, but both grew up in families that believed in god, but never really actively practiced religion.
I went to vacation bible school in the summer when I was young and went to church fairly often because it was an adventure (we had a church van that drove all of us kids there. I loved to learn, so that part of church appealed to me. Then it got to a point where when I asked questions and thought critically about things, none of it made sense. I think I was about 10 or 11. From then on I’ve tried to distance myself from religion as much as I can. Going to a church now makes my skin crawl. *shudder*
Anyway, what it boils down to is that I don’t like all the religious connotations that go along with the holiday season, but I do love showing my wife how much I love her and she loves the whole season. We still call it Christmas and decorate with Santa decorations and the like, but for us it’s all about just being happy and making others happy.
Merry Christmas Lis, Your blogs always make me smile. You always over explain and it’s always been cute hehe.
Crap, that’s always been my number one critique from other people in my writing: repeating myself and overexplaining. (Not sure if that’s a whole word, but Firefox’s spellcheck can suck it.)
Merry Christmas to you, too.
I liked reading the bible stories, too, but they were just stories to me. And like you, at one point it just stopped making sense. That’s about where religion lost me. Thinking about religion too much and where we go when we die and all of that shit just gives me vertigo.
Plus, it didn’t help that I went to Catholic school for 8th grade and was traumatized by the crazy substitute teacher telling us to “look at Jesus on the cross and think about why he died for you.” Creepy! I was like, “I don’t want to look at him! It looks like he’s in pain, man!”
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