We don’t need to be Christian to celebrate Christmas. That’s been true for a long time. We don’t even need to be religious. Considering the commercialization of the holiday, that might be an advantage.
But there is no way to get around the religious iconography. Jesus, nativity scenes and Christian symbols are everywhere. So how do you explain this to your children – or someone else’s children – if you and they are not religious?
Explaining Jesus to your child means explaining God. But when you pull that thread the story unravels to reveal the many versions of god that make up mainstream religion. So we have at least two distinct Christmas problems: the question of God’s existence, and which god might we be talking about.