Read The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas for Free Online

that I had a stroke of genius: a way for me to decline this minor, irrelevant role, and be promoted into a proper acting part.
    “I can’t hold that,” I said.
    “Why not?”
    “I’m allergic to wood.”
    I don’t know if she was more surprised by the absurdity of what I had said or by the fact that it had been said by a smart-alecky, upstart six-year-old, but whichever it was, she wasn’t pleased. She wrote a huffy note, which I gave to my mother later, that said I had been offered a role but was now making up lies to get out of it.
    My mom sat me down that night and asked me what I wanted to do (while sniggering about my wood allergy comment, I should add). My only options, it seemed, were either not be in the school play at all or accept the role of an extra and perform in the choir. With all my friends already practicing their lines, and not wanting to be left out, I chose the latter.
    Photographs taken of the play, when it was performed some weeks later, just before Christmas time, show a very cheery Mary and Joseph, some happy wise men, many elegant and joyous angels, and, standing in the back of the villagers’ choir, one extremely pissed-off, scowling six-year-old, holding her lantern askew. Let’s just say I was not at all happy.
    Years later, when I look back on that event, it seems clear to me that that was the defining moment when I realized I could not believe in God. Sure, as an adult, surrounded by science and reason, it’s obvious to me that God doesn’t exist. But, as a starry-eyed six-year-old, my disbelief in religion came down to three simple facts:
I never got to eat a strawberry cream, because being last in line all the time meant everyone else had already nabbed them. (God can’t be that cruel, surely.)
I did not achieve international stardom from my role as a villager. (God can’t be that mean, surely.)
Anyone who would allow a child to be forced to sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!” is a sadist, not a deity. (I am assuming God is not into S&M.)
    Although I suppose it could be argued that God might exist, for the world at large was prevented from being exposed to my performing at a professional level. Given my singing voice, that really is something to rejoice and say “Hallelujah!” over.

Chapter 8
The Christmas Miracle Event: A Story
    E VAN M ANDERY
    Nathan Townsend’s father had only ever given him two pieces of advice: One, don’t fight a two-front land war in Europe. Two, don’t get drunk at the office Christmas party. This wasn’t much of a parental legacy, but it seemed like good advice and, up until that evening, he had faithfully followed both of Herb Townsend’s maxims, the first with little or no inconvenience, though the second with some, given Nathan’s fondness for eggnog, particularly eggnog with whisky or brandy or rum, each of which was present in abundance at the party, and which, Nathan learned that night, combined to surprising and substantial effect.
    Now, the holiday gathering at the Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach School of Ethics and Moral Culture wasn’t specifically a Christmas party. That really wouldn’t fly with the PTA. Technically, it was a celebration of Juleaftensdag, the eve of the pagan winter festival, Yule. The party-planning committee aimed to be broadly inclusive and incorporated elements of many different Germanic heathen cultures. Dried straw was laid across the floor of the gymnasium following the Estonian custom. Each of the first and second graders left a shoe in the window, in the hope they might be visited by one of the thirteen Yule Lads, who imperfectly filled the role of Santa in the Icelandic tradition. Some of the Yule Lads leave modest gifts like potatoes or apples. One helpful fellow, called the Pot Scraper, cleans the kitchen pans.
    The food was similarly multicultural. They had beetroot salad from Finland, roast goose with red cabbage representing Denmark, and sill (pickled herring) from Sweden. The pièce de résistance was