This holiday season many humanists and non-theists are preparing their annual HumanLight holiday parties and celebrations. Awareness of HumanLight as a secular December holiday is growing across the country and around the world since the idea was formed in 2001.
HumanLight is a secular holiday on December 23rd. It’s designed to celebrate and express the positive, secular, human values of reason, compassion, humanity and hope. HumanLight illuminates a positive, secular vision of a happy, just and peaceful future for our world, a future which people can build by working together, drawing on the best of our human capacities.
The 23rd was chosen so that it would not conflict with other existing holidays, but would still be in the thick of the holiday season, when many gatherings of friends and family occur and people might be off from work. We’ve always said that it can be celebrated “on or around” December 23, in order to avoid any rigid rules about dates.
HumanLight was created and developed by leaders of the New Jersey Humanist Network, and the very first public celebration was held in December 2001 in Verona, NJ. Since then, various secular, freethought, humanist, and atheist groups and individuals have adopted the holiday as part of their December traditions. The American Humanist Associationrecognized HumanLight in 2004 as a valuable contribution to the building of humanist communities and has been supportive in various ways since then. The late humanist leader Dr. Paul Kurtz attended the very first HumanLight celebration in 2001 and returned again to celebrate in New Jersey in 2010.
Read more at: http://americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2012-12-how-to-celebrate-humanlight-a-december-holiday-for-h
It’s also:
- Festivus
- National Pfeffernuesse Day
