I'm a staunch atheist who likes a holiday.

Jesus was most likely born in the spring or fall a few years earlier than we recognize, if he was even a single person or existed at all. The Church, as it did every time, took existing holidays and co-opted them.

The end of the Roman calendar year is an amalgam of pagan holidays that celebrate the shortest day/longest night. A lot of the traditions we associate with Xmas are celebrating the beginning of the lengthening of the day and the return to life/springtime.

Xmas has always been a meta holiday. Most are. Enjoy the company of friends and family just as people have for millenia, no matter what banner is hanging over the mantle.

This is kind of what traditional celebrations are. There's no inherent reason to put a tree indoors at Christmas, but I still love doing it, because it connects me with my childhood and with my parents and with all my ancestors going back generations.

Macy’s windows are overhyped, go see the Saks Fifth Avenue light show. It’s outdoors and projected onto the building with coordinated music, it changes every year and I’ve always enjoyed it. Then you’re like a 2 minute walk away from the Rockefeller Center, where you can see that iconic over the top NYC Christmas scene that’s always on movies and TV, of a gigantic decorated Christmas tree outside with a ton of people ice skating in front of it. Then get some spiced nuts, that shit’s good. Perfect Christmas outing in NYC 👍

Christmas is what you make of it. All my family looks forward to every year is having a dedicated day we can spend together and share in one another's company. Are there gifts? Sure. But calling it an "entirely meta holiday" as if no one is actually appreciating the spirit of the season is lazy and reductive.

Macy's' ad campaign doesn't dictate what Christmas is about. That was kind of the entire point of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special that they mentioned.

The original point of winter celebrations was to get through the long dark nights and bitter cold with the warmth of family and friends. So, who the fuck cares about the window dressing? (Pun not intended but I'm keeping it anyway)

Well that is some dumb fucking take, but ok.

There's an exhibit in the Boston Museum of Science that uses the Pepper's Ghost illusion to show the color-changing coat of some mustelid between a summer and winter setting. The exhibit is still on display because it was the museum's first interactive exhibit ever.

So it was a museum exhibit of a museum exhibit. I postulate that in a few hundred years, the entire museum will be about itself.