Enlarge By Rod Lamkey, Getty Images Customers carry boxes of appliances on "Black Friday" the Friday after Thanksgiving at the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City in Arlington, Va. CHRISTMAS SENTIMENT CHRISTMAS SENTIMENT Rusty Steil enjoys the sweet side of Christmas. His family gathers at his Denver home where there's a little tree and gifts for his wife, step-daughters and three grandchildren. Jesus just has nothing to do with it. Steil, 47, is an atheist. He never goes to church or tells the Nativity story to the little ones. But Christmas parties? Sure, Steil says. "Most atheists I know celebrate in some way. They will get together for solstice or holiday parties." Come-all-ye-partiers trumps OCome, All Ye Faithful for more than one in three people asked about their Christmas activities in a survey by LifeWay Research, a Nashville-based Christian research organization. "A lot of Americans celebrate Christmas like they participate in yoga: unaware and unconcerned about its religious roots," says Ed Stetzer, LifeWay president and a Southern Baptist pastor. HOLIDAY: Many skip Christmas' religious aspect FAITH & REASON: Do your cards star a savior or Santa? There are no statistics to prove whether LifeWay's snapshot of Christmas 2010 is part of a trend or a moment unique for its secular spin. But experts say it reveals several forces inflating a Santa balloon over the season: •Blame the little kids. Although 37% say Christmas is more religious when children are present, 43% says it's less so. "That's not surprising when more people encourage belief in Santa Claus (38%) than tell the Gospel story (28%) that undergirds the whole of Christianity," Stetzer says. So few people hear the Nativity story of the birth of a savior unless they see Peanuts character Linus recite Luke 2:8-14 in A Charlie Brown Christmas. "Sure, people will say Jesus is the reason for the season, but Thor is the reason the fifth day of the week is named Thursday. That doesn't mean I celebrate Thor. The fact is, people don't open the Gospel and read why Jesus came," Stetzer says. •Blame the grown kids. Many Millennials, ages 18 to 29, have switched the lights off on the Nativity scene. More than half (56%) say their Christmas is "primarily" religious; three in four (74%) told LifeWay many of the things they enjoy this season "have nothing to do with the birth of Jesus." "Christmas for them is just something you do because you're an American these days," says Drew Dyck, 33, who works in church ministry for Christianity Today International. He tracked Millennials in his new book, Generation Ex-Christian. If they come home Christmas week to more religious parents, Dyck says, "church is the first thing to go. Everyone thinks, 'Oh, why have that fight?' " Esther Fleece, 28, of Colorado Springs, who works as the link to Millennials for the evangelical Focus on the Family, has many friends less tied to faith. "Black Friday has become a national holiday, and Christmas is like Valentine's Day with more presents," she says. Rather than hammer retailers for saying, "Happy holidays," Fleece was part of a group of Millennials who persuaded Focus to drop its "Naughty & Nice" list of stores that failed the "Merry Christmas" test. This year, the organization celebrates retailers who give back to their communities. Millennials don't like people who demonize those who disagree on faith, Fleece says. She says she deals with their un-Christmas Christmas by gently reminding them, "I'm all for love and peace, but how do you have those without the love of Christ? If you are drawn to giving, think about what Christ gave to us." •Blame the secularism sweeping the culture. "Christmas is no longer about baby Jesus and the sheep. It's solstice with friends, Saturnalia at the office party. At Thanksgiving, you say grace, but at Christmas, you take a break and you go on vacation. It's been downgraded on the religion calendar," says Barry Kosmin, director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. Neither are those who call themselves Christian so clear on the theological dimension of their faith. In 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 52% of American Christians say at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life. The LifeWay Research survey found 62% of people who follow non-Christian religions still celebrate Christmas, along with 89% of people who say they're agnostic or have no religious identity and 55% of atheists. Many retailers now skip "Happy holidays" and promote sales on Santa-suit-red slick paper. This makes the usually genial Jesuit priest James Martin, the "official chaplain of the Colbert Report," cranky. He huffs in The Huffington Post about green and red ads that treat Jesus like "He Who Must Not Be Named," the villain in the Harry Potter books. Martin writes, "Christ may be the new Voldemort." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more