>>I would also like to ask what would be a proper response from an agnostic to someone who wishes me merry Christmas, while we're in the "does not apply" department. If I wished the same back, does it have any validity, coming from an unbeliever?
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>Being raised without a relgion, Easter, Thanks Giving and Christmas are all secular holidays. You know, Santa, the bunny, the turkey...

Well we had New Year and Grandpa Frost (who incidentally looked quite like Santa :), and I actually had two Christmasses to enjoy... the dinner. My grandmother was an Orthodox Christian, and my mother-in-law was raised Catholic (though I don't remember her ever displaying any signs of religion). So we went for a dinner in two places, 13 days apart (Serbian Orthodox church still uses Julian calendar... they may change their mind at the next Universal Congregation of the Orthodox, which they hold once in a few centuries, needed or not), without anyone as much as mentioning any of the religious aspects of it. My grandmother had a large icon of St Nikola, and did a few rites - but it was all in her room.

Same went for Easters - we'd have colored eggs twice (preferrably red, the communist color :), and my kids once even went to the church for Willow day (precedes Easter by a few weeks, I think) just to see how it looks.

I obliged as much as to greet my parents with the greeting of the day ("Christ is born" - "really is born", or "Christ resurrects" - "really resurrects"), but it was clear that nobody expects me to really believe.

And then we had 1st of May (the labor day), Republic day - which were two-day federal holidays, often bridged to the nearest weekend, which would usually mean a minor genocide among piglets, camping out for the day (Mayday usually has really nice weather) and generally stuffing ourselves with whatever we didn't want to leave for the next two or three days, but the remainder would still last us that long.

I think the painted eggs were quite popular in ancient Egypt... and that's not the only rite Christianity borrowed. Or rather took - borrowing implies returning afterwards. There's a bunch of Slavic gods who have their Christian (Orthodox) saints for counterparts - sometimes even with the same name and same jurisdiction. Vid, the Slavic god of light and sight, has become St. Vid. St. Ilias, the lightning caster, is a ringer for Perun, the Slavic god of, guess what, lightning. Etc etc.