My family celebrates Festivus. It's a lot more fun than Christmas, and at least we know our holiday is a charade.
I had to click the button, since col's post I couldn't tell if he was responding to you or ??? Yes, Christmas here is very commercial, but there are still some who celebrate the birth of Jesus even in the UK and not just 'christmas" the commercial holiday. We buy gifts for our kids, but they are happy with anything, and it is limited on what they get. They also buy each other gifts with any money they have (and we help the little ones since they can't earn money as easily.) They even make presents for each other. Not watching much TV keeps them from seeing commercials so they are not asking for stuff. The problem is we don't even know what they want, but I prefer that problem. If my kids complained about the gifts, I think there would be a stop to gift giving for a while. Growing up some of my Christmas gifts when I got in my early teens had to do with a Commodore vic20 and 64, etc.. so I helped buy my gifts since they were expensive.
If I had children I would adopt that very same attitude. Trouble is here in the UK there is so much pressure on parents to buy their kids the most expensive and up-to-date present available at the time, completely conditioned by society. It's a bit like (for example) say the Spectrum 48K just came out and poor Timmy gets a ZX81, he would not be able to show his face for weeks. It's a shame but it's really bad here in the U.K, and pretty soon the Christmas ads will be on TV, we get them starting in late September, it's tedious.
One year my parents took me and the rest of my brothers and sisters down to a soup kitchen place when we were growing up to volunteer during the holidays. We also gave presents to needy families so we learned at an early age that there were kids out there that didn't have much new stuff on Christmas Day. It is a real eye opening experience and even when you are a kid you can learn about how lucky you have things.
christmas is a celebration oh jesus birth right? question did jesus really born in 25 December? or we just made it up so we can have a long weekend merry christmas and happy new year...