The Epicureans would do Christmas very differently than most people assume. Sure, they were hedonists, they were all for pleasure. But for them that didn’t involve lavish meals and copious amounts of drink. They weren’t averse to fine dining if it happened to come their way, but they were aware that making one’s happiness depend on luxuries is a recipe for misery. Instead, they emphasized the psychological pleasure of tranquility and the pleasures of friendship. They would be at home with Christmas gatherings and the practice of giving thoughtful gifts to loved ones. They could even stretch to celebrating Jesus Christ as a God, if that meant looking at him as a role model to aspire to, not as a source of salvation and guarantee of an afterlife, writes Tim O’Keefe.