Can the holidays be happy for secular humanists?

• Author: Mandell, Terri

It may be difficult for the vast majority of Americans to comprehend, but there are a good many of us who choose to live--and live quiet well--without religion. For us, the holiday season can be a nightmare for numerous reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we constantly are having to defend our refusal to participate in what we consider to be mass temporary insanity.

We don't necessarily call ourselves atheists. We're just not Christians. In fact, we don't identify with any religion. There are millions of us out there. You may find us in your own families or among your closest friends. You even may be one of us yourself, but just didn't have a word for it.

For those Americans who believe the Hallmark, AT&T, and American Express commercials that bombard us between Nov. I and Dec. 25 each year, the winter holiday season evokes warm fuzzy images of stable Christian families living warm fuzzy lives. Advertising saturates us with pictures of snow-covered suburban homes all decked out for Christmas, where happy, healthy children open gifts while a pair of married, biological parents look on. Or they show Thanksgiving tables where well-nourished, God-fearing white families say grace. We're prompted incessantly to have plenty of film on hand to capture these fleeting Kodak moments, and, of course, we're supposed to keep the long-distance phone lines buzzing profitably with calls to out-of-town relatives, Everywhere you go, someone is chirping, "Merry Christmas," at you, and expecting you to say the same in return. Weekly television programs--already mindless enough--bring us "special holiday episodes," complete with miracles and personal transformations for characters who develop a sense of social responsibility for a few minutes once a year.

These scenes and sentiments always have irritated me, but I didn't know bow to fortify my boundaries enough to fend off the yearly onslaught. It took a statistic finally to move me to action. When I learned that Americans spend $2,000,000,000 annually on Christmas gifts and accompanying paraphernalia, I drew a hard line. That information so enraged me that I launched a personal campaign to reckon with the seasonal insanity that strikes friends, family, co-workers, strangers on the street, and the media. I decided to start where it matters most--with my impressionable five-year-old son, Danny.

Although I spend a great deal of time reading humanist literature, writing articles and books with a humanist slant, and viewing the world through religion-free eyes, nothing puts it into perspective better...