What does a rationalist do for Christmas (or whatever analogue is going on around you at this time)? Stay at home and grumble, "Bah, humbug! Stop having-fun-for-bad-reasons, and did you know that Láadan has a single word for that concept?"?
Attempting to light a candle instead, I am giving my teenaged nephew, who was into science but is now into history, "Guns, Germs and Steel", which combines both. Someone else (I haven't decided who) is getting "The Atheist's Guide To Christmas" which has chapters by Richard Dawkins, Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, and the like.
My family's doing the same this year. My father comes from a Christian family, and my mother from a Jewish one, and normally we've taken the excuse to celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah, but this year our financial situation doesn't allow for it.
I suppose it's probably related to the fact that if you treat the holiday as an occasion to eat out, Chinese restaurants are more likely than most to actually be open (certainly more likely than most other restaurants that would have been around fifty years ago.) I wish that the Jews of a couple generations ago had managed to come up with a less lackluster tradition.
What does a rationalist do for Christmas (or whatever analogue is going on around you at this time)? Stay at home and grumble, "Bah, humbug! Stop having-fun-for-bad-reasons, and did you know that Láadan has a single word for that concept?"?
Attempting to light a candle instead, I am giving my teenaged nephew, who was into science but is now into history, "Guns, Germs and Steel", which combines both. Someone else (I haven't decided who) is getting "The Atheist's Guide To Christmas" which has chapters by Richard Dawkins, Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, and the like.
What are you doing for Christmas?