The Shaughnessys celebrate Christmas, Harry says, for some of the same reasons other people do: “Because it’s a great time to get together, care for each other and have a party.”<\/p>\n
“And who doesn’t want a tree with pretty lights in their house?” Charlotte chimes in.<\/p>\n
Since they aren’t Christian anymore, the Shaughnessys shape their own holiday traditions. One year, they stretched Christmas across a week, with celebrations leading up to December 25. “That sounds so Jewish now,” Harry jokes. It was anticlimactic, Grace says. When Christmas came, they had nothing left to give, nowhere to go. The ritual was not repeated.<\/p>\n
But the Flying Spaghetti Monster stuck.<\/p>\n
The Church of the FSM, as “Pastafarians” call it, is a faux religion founded in 2005 to satirize creationism. It has since become a symbol for everything atheists find silly and superstitious about faith.<\/p>\n