I don’t celebrate any religious or cultural holidays, and I am an atheist, but that is not the reason I don’t celebrate them. I just don’t celebrate anything because of what day it is. I need a different reason. I’ll celebrate if a close friend has a kid, I’ll celebrate a big business deal, and I’ll celebrate other kinds of achievements.
The main reason is I just find normal holidays always end up boring or predictable. In my mind I think me and my friends will go to a big club to celebrate new year, but in reality we end up waiting around bored at a bus stop, and some idiot will try to bash a bottle over a friends head, and nothing goes to plan.
If I’m going to clelebrate I will say “lets celebrate” or “this called for a celebration” and we will take it from there. It could just be as simple as ordering a bottle of champagne, or we could end up running naked across a closed golf field at night, whatever happens.
I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything at all, in fact I’m often thankful of avoiding whatever it was I did not like the idea of.
If someone says merry x-mas I’ll say it back, and if I get invited to the house of someone who takes it seriously I’ll bring a gift, But thats just to be polite, and I’ll do it for any religion’s holiday.