Can you have Christmas without Christ? Well, ask yourself this- can you have real butter without milk?
A person can have all the margarine they want; it's the color of butter, sort of solid and a little bit creamy; it kind of tastes like butter but; it simply is not butter. It has never been butter; it never will be butter.
So, on the same side; no, a person can not have CHRISTmas without Christ. You can have "Presentday", "Christlessday", and even "Kind of Like Christmas; But Different Day"- but you can not have Christmas.
It is not the holiday most people celebrate when they think of Christmas; it is the actual birth of Christ. A truly sacred and well loved event; a day that gives thanks and appreciation to the one who created us. Christmas is a religious holiday, a very holy day indeed.
How would you like it if someone took your "birthday" and decided to give everyone in the world presents and appreciation- totally forgetting you in the process? I'd say you would feel pretty rotten; and quite rejected.
It is unfortunate that much of the world considers Christmas as a mass marketed; feed the machine, waste of money day. If we would think of it like it should be seen; a holy, give the Lord appreciation and faith time of the year; then this question wouldn't arise so often. People would know Christmas is for Christ; it is not a day to simply give presents and make pies; the ones who are without Christ would simply go on and create their own holiday. A holiday to celebrate giving thanks to their family and friends; as well as one for handing out those trinkets and yummy pies. Not a bad thing for sure; who doesn't love presents and pies?! I'd surely help celebrate that one!
You see; that would not be a bad holiday; it would simply be its OWN holiday.
You're not a bad person for participating in Christmas if you aren't a Christian; you are however celebrating the wrong holiday.
This is a pretty open and shut question. A person can not have one side of a coin without the other; If you wear away a side, you deface the whole coin; rendering it useless. Ever tried using an old beaten up coin in a soda machine? That big hunk of metal just keeps on spitting it out at ya, doesn't it?
The same goes with this most sacred of days; Christmas. If a person wants to celebrate a day without celebrating the whole day; maybe they should come up with their own holiday. (MmmmMmm Pie.)