At this time of year, they only complaining heard is about consumerism or hating the cold. But it still seems that most people, deep down, can move past their mall hatred and embrace this season of giving, charity and dealing with family.

But when you’re not a Christian, not Jewish and not even remotely connected to Kwanzaa, the holidays sometimes serve as little more than a reminder that you’re an outsider.

I’m a Unitarian Universalist. Most people haven’t heard of my religion, but it’s been around for centuries. Several former presidents were Unitarian, as was author Louisa May Alcott and Red Cross founder Clara Barton. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were too.

While many Unitarians identify themselves as Christian, Jewish, pagan or another religion with winter holidays, I don’t. I just believe in you and me and everybody else in the universe, and I guess that’s not good enough.

I still give gifts and whatnot; most of my extended family and friends are Christian. Even the Fetty house sports a tree most years, and last year we even had lights, mostly so we wouldn’t be the only dark house on the block.

But I can’t deck the halls, much less light the menorah, without feeling like a faker. And sometimes the presence of everyone else’s enthusiasm is just overwhelming. I live on Lincoln Avenue and park under a gaudy fake wreath tied to a lamp post. I’ve already had to listen to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” I guess it’s all cute in a way, but it belongs to somebody else. Sometimes I feel like it belongs to everybody else.

l love being a Unitarian, and finding my spirituality in earth and the people on it. But I’ll always feel a little like I’m encroaching on someone else’s joy when I co-opt Christmas. I kind of wish I could invent another winter holiday for people like me who are content with their spirituality, but feeling left out.

I know it’s a little silly to whine about being left out. Obviously, I get left out of a lot of things “normal” people enjoy by being not only an atheist, but a queer and easily offended by whatever dances on television. Some would argue that these things are my choice, but I would say it’s not that simple. I am who I am and I dig it for the most part. It just sucks to have to borrow Santa Claus.

This isn’t a problem that I have a real solution to. I can’t ask people to stop celebrating, and that isn’t what I want, anyway. I like seeing people giving unselfishly in so many ways. Sure, I could bitch and moan about commercialization and only going to church one day a year, but I think the holidays still come from a good place in all of us, er, all of you.

Just remember that even though the holidays may seem like something familiar and comfortable, there are people who are always going to struggle to find where they fit into all these traditions.