The holiday season is in full swing for my Christian friends. They are now, or soon will be, buying gifts, decorating, eating candy canes and making cookies.

Though I hate the music that plays in stores this time of year – a sentiment not limited to atheists like me – I also celebrate a holiday on Dec. 25. When I’m feeling verbose, I like to call it Secular End-of-Year Gift-Giving Day; but most of the time I just call it X-Mas. It’s like Christmas, but without the religious pretense.

There’s no need to guiltily feed the collection bowl to make up for 363 days of absence (Easter being the other day); no need to go to a crowded church and watch children act in poorly directed plays; no repetitive stand-sit-stand regimen at a pastor’s whim; no hymns, no gods, no prayer and absolutely no drummer boy.

Instead, I have more time to shop on Sundays. The few bucks that might have gone to some church instead go toward gas to visit my friend in the hospital. And I have more time to actually have fun with my family rather than worship with them.

X-Mas is a day precisely for that: To spend time with family. On Dec. 24 we eat dinner, have drinks and play party games. If there’s snow, we go sledding at midnight.

We get up early the next morning to find the gifts my parents put under the X-Mas tree (which has neither an angel nor a star atop). We don’t have to pretend that this ritual has anything to do with a virgin giving birth to the son of a god (because it doesn’t).

My brother and I are atheists; my two sisters and my parents lie somewhere between agnostic and non-practicing Christians. But despite the negative connotations around atheism and the inflammatory lies propagated by religious groups like the 700 Club, my family is very much united.

I have a relatively good home life: My parents have never divorced, no one has gone to prison or rehab and we’re not compulsive liars or thieves. My older sister earned a double-major in college; my brother and I both graduated early from high school; my younger sister is very active in high school and is getting good grades.

We’ve accomplished all this without a religious foundation. I could say we’ve been blessed with exceptional parents, but I won’t, because blessings are meaningless.

Rather, I’m very glad for the family I have and the way my parents have raised my siblings and me. We’re not only happy people, we’re good moral people (as judged by the effect that our actions have on humanity at large rather than by biblical decree).

And, like most Americans, we get together for a holiday at the end of the year. The only difference is, we don’t pretend it’s in celebration of someone’s birth. We’re perfectly clear that the reason we get together is because we care about each other.

There are few better reasons than that to celebrate.

Happy Secular End-of-Year Gift-Giving Day.