Stop the sleigh - I want to get off

If you harbour a secret fantasy to exercise your opt-out Claus this Christmas, relax - you are not alone, writes Fionola Meredith.

It's a secret, almost inadmissible fantasy that steals over many of us at this time of year. You know the scene. You're standing in a long queue for the check-out with your arms full of garish, multi-coloured tinsel, a bumper pack of novelty Homer Simpson boxer shorts, and a mini fibre-optic Christmas tree your kids persuaded you to buy. It's hot and stuffy, Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody is making a determined assault on your jangled nerves, and the woman behind you in the queue is pressing her shopping trolley with pernicious insistence into the backs of your thighs.

Just as you're meditating on the universal truth of Jean-Paul Sartre's insight that "hell is other people", the naughty fantasy creeps enticingly into your tired brain. I know, you think, why not just opt out of Christmas this year? Of course, most of us dismiss this idea at once. The children would be outraged and besides, what would we do all day if we weren't opening presents, eating turkey and fighting with the in-laws over the remote control?

But some people are so desperate to avoid the enforced jollity of the festive season, they'll do anything to escape. A few years ago, Colin Wood, a 30-year-old financial services worker, hit the headlines. He paid €320 to spend two weeks alone in a decommissioned nuclear bunker in Essex over the Christmas period. Retreating underground behind blast-proof doors and 10-foot-thick concrete, he survived on Spam, baked beans and tap water. Wood was one of 50 would-be bunker dwellers who bid at an Internet auction site to hire the bunker, billed as "the site where even Santa is unlikely to venture".

Although his tactics were extreme, Wood's escape is part of a tradition of festive dissent. Irish dramatist and intellectual George Bernard Shaw was a notorious anti-Christmas ascetic. The playwright was keen to do a normal day's work on December 25th; he steadfastly avoided festive revellers and observed his usual vegetarian, alcohol-free diet. Others with reclusive tendencies adopt similar tactics, using everyone else's complete immersion in Christmas-related activities as an opportunity to withdraw quietly from the populist melée.

Philip Hammond is a composer living in Belfast. He says: "I use the Christmas season for composing because I can have several days unencumbered by phone or people and can therefore get into the compositional context, which is 'withdraw from the world and suffer'! Everyone else is doing the 'family thing' and as I don't have a family it is the perfect time to be hermit-like and avoid humanity. Also, not being a Christian, I have no hang-ups about being involved in doing social conscience things such as being nice to people (and their children too) or going to endless carol services and seasonal activities which mean nothing to me.

"But I will admit to the odd little touch of nostalgia which inevitably creeps in when I hear a really good choir singing a really good piece of Christmas music - but definitely not Messiah."

Another way to do Christmas differently is to simply cherry-pick the bits you like and ditch the bits you don't. Dick Spicer is ceremonial co-ordinator of the Humanist Association of Ireland. While humanists emphatically deny the underpinning Christian elements of Christmas, Spicer says: "we're perfectly happy to have a bit of fun; it doesn't bother us to go along with the celebrations. We believe that since we have only one life to live, we have a duty to try and enjoy it. So I think there's a kind of logic in participating in the festive season, even though we reject religious dogma.

"The ancient Greek ideal of the Golden Mean teaches us that moderation is the source of pleasure, and we certainly don't believe in abstinence for its own sake. We're not puritans by any means. So we simply secularise Christmas. Actually, the myth of Santa Claus provides very good humanist training in religious scepticism for children - it's the story of a kindly old man who doesn't exist!"

Barbara Smoker, former president of the National Secular Society, argues that secularists can join in the festive feast boldly without losing face, since "if anyone ought to abstain from the seasonal celebrations of the fourth week of December on grounds of credal consistency it is the believing Christian. The pantomime, the Christmas tree, candles, mistletoe, holly, feasting on special kinds of meat, the mince pies and the flaming sun-shaped Christmas pudding - all were pagan in origin and symbolism, and all were anathema to the Fathers of the Church."

The undeniably pre-Christian roots of the celebrations are indeed anathema to some Christians today. Jehovah's Witnesses find this "pagan inheritance" repugnant, refusing to participate in Christmas in any way - including gift-giving and feasting. Ewen Watt, a spokesperson for the Jehovah's Witnesses in Ireland, says: "Christmas is un-Christian. It's against the spirit of what Christ stood for, and we certainly wouldn't get involved in it. It's as offensive to us as taking Hitler's birthday and making it into a huge celebration would be to the Jewish community. For us, the most sacred day in the religious calendar is Easter. We prefer to commemorate that."

But it's pagans themselves who really feel disenfranchised at this time of year. Many pagans see the Christian usurpation of the pagan midwinter festival of Yule as an expression of the privileged position of institutionalised Christianity in the Western world. Yule, which takes place around December 21st, is one of the traditional Celtic fire festivals, marking the return of the light after the longest night of the year.

Pat Boston, who works as a life model for art students, is a practising pagan who detests the "month-long panic" known as Christmas. Boston thinks that the long, drawn-out preparations for Christmas are symptomatic of our disconnection with the natural rhythms of the earth: "As pagans, we worship the earth as the main giver, marking the turning of the seasons, the cycle of life and death. Everything must be in its own place and time, and it's wrong to falsify that natural order for monetary greed. It leads to spiritual turmoil. Pagans believe that following the cycle of the year helps us maintain who we are, reminds us that we are all part of a never-ending cycle."

Pat is especially uncomfortable with the "forced festivity" of Christmas. "Within paganism, you are allowed a dark side - the side of your being which is raging, or sad, or lonely. Pagans honour that dark side - without it, you can't be a whole person. The short, dark days when everything is underground are a reflective time which enables us to withdraw, to dig deep within ourselves." Although other pagans meet to enact the ceremonial "battle of the oak and the holly" (representing summer and winter) with drums and chanting, Pat observes Yule at home with her daughter: "We celebrate the birth of the Sun, not the Son. We gather holly and ivy to decorate the house and we exchange small gifts. Often we'll have a meal of all our favourite foods to celebrate life. It's a quiet, contemplative time to be together."

Swimming against the torrent of seasonal jollity isn't easy. But for those who "don't do Christmas", it's the only way to ensure that December 25th is just one more unremarkable day in the year.

Stuff the turkey - How you can escape the seasonal tedium

Why not go on a Buddhist winter retreat at the London Buddhist Centre? The five-day course begins on December 22nd and is marketed as a "getaway from Christmas madness". Participants will examine the themes of generosity, ethics, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom.

www.lbc.org.uk

Reject the rampant commercialism of Christmas by refusing to buy presents at all this year. You'll find plenty of support at www.buynothingchristmas.org. It's a website run by Canadian Mennonites dedicated to reviving the original meaning of Christmas giving. Homemade fudge, personalised poems and the promise of a massage are all free alternatives to the annual spend-fest.

Need to get far, far away? Try Yoga Diving in Dahab on the Red Sea in Egypt. You can spend Christmas "discovering the wonders of oceanic life in a cool, relaxed way, combining yoga techniques with diving" among the exquisite coral and marine life of the Red Sea.

www.retreat-co.co.uk

Fancy learning to firewalk? Lendrick Lodge is a residential centre at the foot of Ben Ledi near Stirling in Scotland, an area that was once the gathering point for Celtic druids. It offers a full spectrum of "holistic courses, therapies and journeys of healing and awakening", including firewalking, shamanism and reiki.

www.lendricklodge.com