This is the first Christmas in our new house.  It works just as we thought it would—we put the tree in the round bay at the front corner of the living room, which it just fills, and its lights glow out to the street as well as through the house.  Kate wanted to help trim the tree, so for two weeks it bore only lights while we waited for her to come home.  I thought it looked better that way, but now I see that I was wrong; the ornaments complete the Christmas mood.

Why do I feel that mood?  We are all atheists.  Neither Christianity nor the pagan cults evoked by the fir tree correspond to anything we actually believe in.  Yet I love to look at the tree, just as I love to go hear the “Messiah” and to play CDs of Christmas carols.

Mostly, I love it because we have always done it.  Doing it again means that we are a family, that we love and care for each other just as we loved, cared for, and were cared for by our parents and children when we were young.  It makes me feel warm and safe.  This is the first Christmas since my father’s death, and there is great comfort in the proof that we can still bring this off, hold a family together and organize proper festivities now that I have no parents to fall back on.

There’s more, though. I love the “Messiah” because it is great music, but part of that greatness is its feeling of faith, and I love that, too.  I do not expect to be raised incorruptible, or even to have my consciousness go on after my own death.  I believe Mom and Dad live on in our memory, but only there. Nevertheless my heart stirs when I hear that trumpet sound.

I love the Christmas Revels, too, and am similarly stirred by the pagan rituals.  I know perfectly well that we have seasons because of the axial tilt of the earth as it revolves around the sun, and that the days will grow long, the air and soil will warm, and the plants begin to grow again whether we celebrate the solstice or not.  Nevertheless my heart leaps up when the young knight in the mummers’ play leaps up from death.

Here, too, I love these things because our culture has always done them.  Just as there is warmth and safety in family, there is comfort in knowing that we are part of a long tradition, and in choosing consciously to link ourselves to the cycle of nature.  But there is still something more.  Having no religious faith myself, the faith of others moves me all the same.  Without sharing their beliefs, I share their religiosity—the deep desire to commit ourselves to some higher purpose, to care for our families and for humanity just as they care for us, to care for the earth and to convince ourselves that somehow it cares for us as well. It is these deep feelings that give meaning to our lives, and  make us human.

So, from the depths of my unbelief, let me wish a sincere “Merry Christmas” to all!

An editorial by John C. Berg.  Your comments are invited.

The feeling that Christmas links us with the distant past is real; but the actual holiday as we know it was largely invented in the 19th century, inspired by Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and Victoria and Albert of England. See Karal Ann Marling, Merry Christmas! Celebrating America's Greatest Holiday