Is an atheist celebrating Christmas hypocritical

Your attempt to deny that Christmas is unequivocally related in modern culture to Christianity is nonsense. The very fact that you made the conscious decision to take up the con position on this debate would go to prove that Christmas is absolutely synonymous with Christianity, religion and is contradictory to atheism. Even if we take into account the commercial secularist aspects of "selling" Christmas, ie Santa Claus/St. Nicolas, the Christmas tree - a depiction to everlasting/new life, presents - a representation of the gifts given to Jesus by the wise men, living snowmen - reference to otherwise impossible life coming by way of spiritual/deistic intervention they all lead in and relate directly to Christianity or scriptural Christian value. Without the installation of mass commercial manipulation of 'religious festival' you are still left with the ultimate reason it is celebrated within Christian majority nations, and that is that the population is majority Christian and are partaking in the celebration of there cultural identity as Christians. Whether the day or date has been misconstrued, misinterpreted or misunderstood. If you were to ask the vast majority of eg the USA what is Christmas celebrating, the answer would be unanimously the birth of Jesus. Onto non-Christian celebration of Christian holidays I have 2 points. Firstly in America non Christians are in the minority, minority groups in any nation naturally adapt to the culture/way of life of the host nation. It is often a need or desire to fit in and not to offend or create unrest towards oneself. It is also out of mutual respect, as I stated earlier I would not expect Jews, Muslims or atheists to run around town ripping down Christmas trees, but active participation which is something entirely different. Becoming indoctrinated into Christian culture will naturally cause non Christians to take on some cultural practices which are considered mandatory in the society there living in. The question is would they still continue with such practices in a culture or country where they are the religious majority. My second point is non Christians can create in Christmas a direct connection or adaptation with there own belief, faith religion. Muslims believe in Jesus/Isa as a prophet in the same regard as Mohammed, they believe Jesus was born to the virgin Mary/Mariam and that she was informed of the pregnancy by way of the angel Gabriel. It has an acceptance of certain celebration as it holds direct parallels with there own beliefs. Jews, Hindus or Buddhists can adapt a Christian Christmas message to also fit in to there belief system which is ultimately that of a creator, an eventual judgement day and a need to do good onto others for your own spiritual fulfilment. This is where atheism is the odd one out, atheism is rejection of such beliefs of God, God theory, belief in spiritual consciousness and religion as a whole thus holding no value and attributing no adoration onto anything which is a contradiction to that. Your claim paganism, Buddhism or any other polytheistic/spiritually based religion is non deity based is not true, all have different depiction, understandings and acknowledgements for what god is but they are all in belief of Gods, deities and creators. Specifically in regard to your statement on paganism and its relation to Christmas, the winter solstice or yule are celebrations of God, specifically Odin. In regard to your claim that st. Patrick day having evolved, its historical value worthless or that its green beer day. This may be the case for you, maybe for America but not for the rest of the world, not for Irish catholics and not in any St Patrick day celebration I've ever taken part in. It is held in high regard as being both a celebration of the history of Ireland as well as pride in being Irish Catholics. Just because you ignorantly misinterpreted something, it does not change its realistic meaning. The same is true of Christmas, you may choose to deny and disregard its Christian basis this des not change the fact it is Christian and it is indeed hypocritical to celebrate it if you state that you are an atheist