HAPPY WINTER LIGHTS FESTIVAL!!!

By Steven

What a drag. The "Hell o'days" are here and the baby Jesus (cast in authentic Chinese designer resin!) is on sale NOW at Rite Aid! Even before the post Halloween 50% off candy sale (IMPORTANT!!) was over...last years left over Xmas crap was dusted off and dragged out of the back room by miserable employees and diligently scattered around the drug store.

Overhead (by authority of The President) the torture is piped in...silent nite, away in a mangy, holly jolly Xmas...I would rather be water boarded than to hear F@%$!!#@ Jingle Bells one more time.

Years ago my pastor shocked the congregation with this statement from the pulpit...

"I see bumper stickers everywhere that read "Keep Christ in Christmas" I say leave him out of it!...Christmas is hopelessly compromised and we'd do better just to celebrate with a wonderful Winter Feast and think about the baby Jesus some other time" Needless to the old ladies were shocked.

I agree...get Christ out of Xmas, besides the Government unlawfully shuts down for Christian (ONLY!) holidays anyway. However! I think Pastor Howard was right about the Winter Feast.

As a non-religious person, I celebrate the longest night of the year with lights and candles, food and friends. It's called...

"The Winter Lights Festival"

I don't say Happy Holidays (HOLY DAYS) I say… Happy Winter Lights!

This is absolutely not related to Wicca or any other pagan crap… the longest night of the year is an astronomical phenomenon, known by humans for tens of thousands of years. It is just the position of the sun and planets… not magic.

It has always been dark and cold on that night… in the northern hemisphere. For eons, men have feasted and celebrated the coming of the light…the days begin to get longer the day after Winter Lights. Unfortunately, being ignorant, man just HAS to put some “magic” into it. No godz make the days longer, just nature. But we have always had some kind of feast at the winter solstice.

So this year I will have my Winter Lights party on Friday evening December 21.

I decorate with many candles and lights, give gifts to my friends, we have food. we party. We celebrate our friendship and remember how the truths of science have delivered us from the slavery of ignorance, religion, magick and stupidity. I live near South Lake Tahoe Nevada and if anyone wants to join me… RSVP soon! We start at sunset!

Happy Winter Lights!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yes! I agree that x-mas has been blown into a huge commercialized clusterf-k of materialism! I think you idea is a good one!

For a long time after I de-converted I didn't celebrate anything this time of year. I was so angry at being lied to and f-cked over by the "church" that I abstained from x-mas entirely! Now my boys and I actually do put up a tree, decorate the house, etc. Only we decorate with the appropriate spirit. We understand that it is a Pagan holiday and we decorat accordingly. We set up the old pokimon figures and Star Wars figures with the dime-store nativity figures. We have a rip-roaring time posing Pikachu with baby Jesus! Our new tradition has spawned all kinds of hilarious scenarios which have been a source of fun and laughter for many hours! We also find all kinds of interesting things to decorate the fake tree with! Why spend money on tacky x-mas ornaments when you can find things around the house? We have three cats so there is no shortage of cat toys to decorate the tree with, among other things.

We also feast and make cider and give gifts. We do all those things in the spirit of LOVE. We give in the name of LOVE. We do things for one another because we want to. Its more honest that way!

The key is to have fun and create good memories for the family! Life is short. I wasted too much of mine on fairy tales. Now I am going to have fun!

Happy Family Days!
Anonymous said…
It's a nit, but I believe that Christmas is actually the only holiday honored at the Federal level that has explicitly religious overtones.

All the more reason to get rid of Christmas as a holiday.
Anonymous said…
The bestus winter festival is festivus. It is the opposite of Christmas and is actually fun to participate in.
Festivus is for the rest of Us
TheJaytheist said…
Ahh yes! The "haul-a-days".

When we were christians, before we even had kids, we'd have to get up early to open our presents to each other. Then we'd load the car, race on over to my moms house(40mi) to exchange gifts to those there, and race off to my wifes granparents(40mi) to visit her moms side of the family. There we'd eat and exchange gifts some more. Then we'd go to her aunts house(30mi) for more of the same. Then it'd be back to my mom's(70mi) for the presents that we didn't get because we had to leave before everyone else arrived and to make up for leaving before we got to see everyone. Then we'd end up going home unloading all our gifts and collapsing from the stress and the drive. We felt we had to do this to show our christian love to our families.

After we had our children, It got even more complicated. That was a lot of haulin' crap around for one day.

I dreaded it every year.

Since my leaving christianity, breaking family bonds, and moving hundreds of miles away, I don't have to do that anymore.

Now it's just me, my wife, and our kids. Sooo much less stressful. We don't go anywhere to see anyone. My wife's mom comes to visit afterwards. But we get to celebrate what we want, how we want, with who we want.

I look forward to it now.
Spirula said…
Carl K.

The other perspective would be that our culture has so secularized Christmas, Christianity doesn't really get to lay claim to it anymore. (Ignoring, of course, that Christianity stole "christmas" from the pagans in the first place).


On the other hand, there are several states in the South where PUBLIC schools are closed every good Friday. That is a pretty clear cut a deference to a specific religion.
Anonymous said…
"So this year I will have my Winter Lights party on Friday evening December 21."

Hey Steven, can I come? It sounds like fun, man. At least have a drink of eggnog to me!
Anonymous said…
I love Christmas. It's so cozy.

-Leonard.
Anonymous said…
I celebrate "Pastamas," which pays homage to HIM! May your days be noodly and bright.

Ramen!
Anonymous said…
Seriously though, even though I became an atheist at age 18 (I'm 53 now) I never stopped celebrating the season, and yes that included trees, lights, food, music (mostly the great classical stuff, but some xmas pop tunes also), and gifts. Just no Jebus or god...none. Most of the trappings of the holiday are indeed pagan, and that was based upon the astronomical event called the winter solstice. I have no problem with those traditions, just the "Christian" ones.
Anonymous said…
As the author stated, this time of year is always cold and dark, and the skies are gray. Therefore, I feel there is a strong psychological need for some kind of holiday. I look forward to the lights and gaudy decorations.

It is this psychological need that first moved the christians to commandeer the thing in the first place; no one would convert if that meant giving up the best party of the year.
AWLHEART said…
Winter is cozy, not xmas. The hollydays are for the stores to make money and people to lose money by being forced to purchase useless gifts for people. Ever notice how long the return lines are after that hollyday?

We just don't celebrate it and cave into a way to get people to spend lots of money. What a waste of time, money and effort.

Let's just get rid of religion and everyone love each other all year long!
Anonymous said…
Calling all zombies! Calling all zombies!

Ye must do as you are told to do, you must cook a turkey and to thank your god for the turkey and all of it's trimmings, you must mimick the pilgrims.

Now it's time to mimick the three anonymous wise men and to give gifts and presents and swoon and act and sing and pretend to mimick the baby jesus.

Rejoice ye in false joy, hope, peace, gayiety, and song, for he is risen to the clouds and is looking down upon the ignorant zombie fools.

So soon it will be Dec. 26 ---Stop it, it's all over, back to business as usual...reset mind... forget xtmas looking forward to next year...then we'll go again same ole shit, basically humans are useless mindless idiots..
Unknown said…
I love Christmas...and I'm an atheist. It's just a great time of year to spend with your family, exchange gifts, and check out the decorations when the cold season has come.

I see it this way. People don't stop celebrating Christmas when they find out that modern-day Santa Claus and the flying reindeer aren't real. So I say why stop celebrating it when you find out that God isn't real either? And if you're like me, it was always all about Santa anyway...
RealityWarrior said…
I reckon we should simply remove the 'mas' from Christmas and celebrate all year round as the Lord commanded. "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. He that does not love does not know God for God is love."
www.spiritwar.info
Better not look at the above site as it contains facts that are only for the wise and the faithful.
So if you don't qualify, don't look.
Dave Van Allen said…
Yeah, and don't go to http://www.bogeyman.net/, either, unless you're qualified.

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