For those of you who don't celebrate Christmas... (Page 3)

Sounds like another tough situation.  I can only imagine how well a Christian family would react to having  Buddhist as a member!  It also sounds that in some ways your mother is like mine...I just have a hard time enforcing those boundaries when the family as a whole is usually very open with their faith and share it daily with others. 

And we are definitely planning on doing our own thing, but communicating that to the family without causing more strain is the challenge. 

No worries!  We'll just have to wait until another evolution or toilet paper thread gets started!

My wife and I are in a similar situation with my family, everyone but us are religious in the expected fomat. My family knows this and they know they are not going to change my mind. This doesn't avoid the rare "you aren't living right" speech but it does avoid it most of the time.

As far as Christmas goes. I know that above the religious aspect of it, it is very important to my family to be together for Christmas. They go to church on Christmas Eve and we go with them. It is more of a respect for their desire to be together as a family unit sort of thing. I don't neccessarily want to go to church with them but it is a small thing I can do to show that I care about them. We don't discuss it afterwards and everything moves along just fine.

I would guess that if your family was faced with the choice between brow beating you into religion and having you around for Christmas they would probably decide that the beating isn't worth it and that they would rather have you around.

I'd say you should compromise a little and out of respect for them attend the religious aspect and in return ask them to respect your beliefs and not try to have a conversation about differences during the holiday.

Christmas is one time that everyone desires family solidarity. I would work toward that end with compromise on both sides.

Well, it was only 1 conversation 10 years ago. She never brought it up again. She knows her daughter well enough to know that I will make up my own mind and do what I think is right. It's how she raised me!

I am my mother's daughter.

She has also told me "I just want you to be happy" which is what any parent should want for their child. How I get happy is up to ME.

I think she is the GREATEST mother ever. I totally adore her.

As far as enforcing your boundaries ... you choosing not to believe or observe the holy day as they do does not also mean you get to say how they express their beliefs. Just as you want them to accept your lack of belief, you should accept that they are believers. Some believers think their faith calls them to proselytize. That's part of their belief.

I guess this is what this thread is about - how do you balance your respect for their beliefs with your need for them to respect your disbelief? Try to meet them where they are. Respectfully assert your boundaries - I would love to see the family. Please be accepting of me, even when I don't participate in the religious aspect of our family celebration. Something like that? Whatever the words, let them come from your heart and with kindness and respect.

nicely said.

Am I considered extremely religious if I admitted there are people I would enjoy beating the hello out of?

nah, you're still mainstream.

I kind of akin this to when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me and I reply "Happy Solstice" or "Blessed Be".  It's them trying to include you in their celebration.

Granted, it's different when they 'brow beat' you with the religion and such.  I've gone round and round with the fact that 'Christmas' is really not Jesus' birth day or even birth month but rather a convienant way to have the Pagens covert.  But I just get a confused look by most.

Just smile and enjoy the family time if you can.  That's what I do.  And you are welcome to come to my Winter Solstice party!

*running out to my mailbox to look for my invite*

Do really think it's accurate to attribute the materialization of Christmas to Christians?  I disagree with this.  Much of secular society practices the Christmas tradition.  As long as we keep the focus on buying and giving gifts...


Andrew, maybe one suggestion would be to move it to a neutral territory that could accomadate everyone's needs.   Perhaps you could all go to a choir performance or something of that nature, where the focus is shifted from worship to just listening and appreciating.  I wish you luck in getting this worked out.

Will there be party favors and lotsa good micro-brews??

I'll bring the eggnog!

I think Christmas is the perfect time to bring up my greek history nerdism and drop random bits into conversation about Dionysus... and the fact that the western picture of the big man is actually fully based (stolen?) from Zeus.

Immediately after, jump on the table and yell that that D@mn tree is a pagan symbol!

Keep that up and you'll earn yourself a permanent seat at the solsitce table...

As much as I've been tempted, I've refrained from bringing up the Greek parallels.  Nothing really to be gained there if the person can't view things objectively. 

My husband and I are going to Las Vegas for Christmas.  We don't have the exact problem, but we were generally fed up with the rules and expectations around Christmas time and we are not religious.  I make a point to see my family more than that one time a year, so I don't miss anything if we don't happen to be around on 12/25.  Our main issue has to do with which family members get our time and when and it all feels too obligatory.    My mom is smug if she finds out I chose her over Dad, but she is also likely to ditch us entirely to visit my out-of-town sister if that suits her needs that year.  So this year we decided to be traveling.   This also answers, for us, the question of what to buy each other.  My husband doesn't need any more LL Bean Sweaters, so this year we're exchanging plane tickets. 

We suffer similarly around Thanksgiving and we've actually told my parents we would be celebrating with the other and just stayed home.  So, I guess you could lie   Thankfully my husband's family is a plane trip away.

Edited by BikerGrrrl 2010-10-14 12:36 PM

My former husband and I would often take ski and travel abroad vacations during last 2 weeks of the year. Worked great and we felt no guilt at all!

Andrew, sound like you've come up with your solution, which is to do your own thing and tell them you prefer to spend time with them another time.  Renee's ski vacation is particularly intriguing!

The other option, as you said in your "golf" post, is to arrive for dinner.  Breaking bread together is USUALLY a good thing for unity.  But if they really do bug you for your beliefs every 15 minutes, well, I see how that would be pretty awful.

My family is Catholic and I am a member of a different type of Christian church.  (To non-Catholics: that is a big deal.  As far as they were concerned, I'd left the family.  I am pretty sure I was briefly disinherited.)  Nowadays for me, the only awkward thing about Christmas is the decision about whether or not to attend Christmas mass.  Mass typically makes me uncomfortable.  These past few years I  stay home, maybe pray, call a friend, and ideally sweep up or something useful.  But that's very different from your situation, because nobody bugs me about it.  After 16 years, they are used to me. 

Good luck.

I know the feeling of feeling on the outside of a Catholic family.  My wife's family is catholic and when we first got married, I still called myself a protestant christian.  To my in-laws, that was the same as being an atheist!  My father was raised in a catholic family, and when he became protestant, my grandparents felt he had left the family and still, 30+ years later, believe he is going to hell despite being a very devout christian. 

Anyway, my wife and I are talking about Cancun the week before Christmas!  We have a bunch of frequent flyer miles and free hotel points from my business travel, so we could take off to almost anywhere in the world and not pay a dime.  Getting to the tropics sounds pretty nice!  Then a nice quiet week at home for the actual week of Christmas.  The family doesn't need to know when we get back...

I can't imagine Chinese restaurants get much business on Christmas eve...

Andrew- I think the vacation to Cancun is a great idea.

My husband and I both grew up in Catholic families. Today, we like to refer to ourselves as recovering Catholics. We're not religious at all, no church, prayers, etc. 

However, we still baptized our children in my parents' church. I knew it would break my grandma's heart if I didn't. It's something that means a lot to her and I don't want to challenge it out of respect to her. Fortunately, my family has been pretty cool about not questioning or pressuring us about our decision not to practice the Catholic religion. Your situation sounds tough.

Yeah, a driving factor for why we haven't had kids is to avoid the uproar that will occur when we don't baptize, christen, name a godparent or do any of that other Catholic stuff.  I seriously think my mother in law would try to take the baby when we weren't looking to a priest...

You know, the only time I ever went to a Catholic church I kinda dug all the stuffy ritualistic stuff. Was good times.

Wouldn't want to do it more than once every couple of years or anything... but it was neat

have you ever seen the christmas story??  my family has definitely had dinner disasters that ended with ordering pizza or chinese on a holiday!!  (never happens on nana's watch of course, holidays at her house are on point.)

Edited by meherczeg 2010-10-15 7:16 AM

FA-RA-RA-RA-RA.....RA-RA-RA-RA!