Some people think the name should be changed to 'Giftmas'. Are we starting to take the Christ out of Christmas, asks Joe Humphreys.

Christmas is meant to be a time for bringing people together. But does it not just remind us how far apart we are? On one of the most important dates of the religious calendar in Ireland, churches everywhere will be humming with prayer. Yet for many Mass-goers, it will be the first occasion of worship for 12 months, and the last for another year.

A common scene plays out thus: mother goes to Midnight Mass and prays for the soul of her beloved son . . . who is in the pub across the road celebrating one of the booziest nights of the year. Father and daughter drag themselves to Mass on Christmas Day, arriving late and mumbling but a few responses - he being somewhat cynical after years of clerical abuse scandals, and she somewhat unconvinced of Christ's teachings compared to the horoscopes she read that morning.

Cracks in faith seem to be becoming chasms at a societal level, and the gaps are in large part generational. While 85 per cent of the population still describes itself as Catholic, many are looking away from Rome and toward the East, or internally, for answers to the bigger questions in life. Some 15,000 people queued in Dublin last month to see Amma, "the hugging saint". Others are turning to astrology, crystals, angel cards, Tarot or, more sanely perhaps, humanism. That's not to mention Ireland's fastest-growing religion: consumerism. Circumstances differ but the pattern is the same: people nudging Christ to the periphery of their lives, or replacing him with another "X".

Last year, the X-factor was Paulo Coelho. This year, it's Eckhart Tolle. Next year it could be Deepak Chopra or Anam Cara's John O'Donohue - again. So flows the faith of Generation X-mas (to use a seasonal moniker suggested by Eoin Higgins of The Dubliner magazine).

Within this generation, women seem more willing to experiment than men. Anecdotal evidence suggests that where the former tend to explore alternatives to Catholicism, or "complementary" spiritual practices, the latter simply put an end to their faith when doubt sets in. The number of people who said they had no religion doubled between 1991 and 2002 to 138,000, according to the latest Census, but men outnumbered women in the category by six to four.

Under those circumstances, and with such a melange of belief-systems around, one wonders should "Christmas" be celebrated in Ireland at all? Perhaps those secularists arguing for a name-change to "Giftmas" are right. "Happy holidays" may grate with some of us but surely it's the right greeting to use, given our propensity to take sunshine trips to the Canaries around this time of year?

Taking the "Christ" out of "Christmas" might better reflect the feast day as it is honoured in the Ireland of 2005. But who would want such a thing, and why? Even those who have explicitly turned their backs on Christianity tend to prefer the existing religious rite to some sort of saccharine winter-fest imported from America. As Ann James, secretary of the Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI), says: "Each year we talk as a group about changing the name of Christmas but 'Happy holidays' just sounds odd. Most of us still say 'Happy Christmas'."

She plans to spend Christmas Day decorating her kitchen but, she stresses, this is not out of spite toward the event. "I have heard of people who have opened a tin of beans on Christmas Day just to make a point. But most humanists are fairly moderate," she says. "We don't want to stop people celebrating religion, and we're definitely not into banning Christmas. Most of us are not revolutionaries. We are evolutionists."

Mary King, from Ashford, Co Wicklow, is a case in point. A lapsed Catholic and fellow HAI member, she regards the story of Christ's birth as a "myth" but a "lovely" one at that. While she stopped going to Mass at Christmas eight years ago, when her Catholic mother died, she continues to display a crib in her home each December, and she sends overtly religious Christmas cards. "A snowman or robin in some winter scene is a poor substitute for a moving representation of the Nativity," she says.

Other humanists seem to agree. One mother of a secular persuasion fears that her offspring would be part of "the first generation that doesn't believe in God but does believe in Santa Claus".

King, who said her parents were devout but "open-minded" Catholics, sees something of the shifting faith patterns in her own family. Married to a fellow humanist - a musician who regularly performs with Christian choirs - she has 48 nieces and nephews who share a variety of belief systems. A number of her siblings have "drifted" from the religion of their upbringing, while others "pick and mix", she says. "People are moving in various directions, and I see that as a healthy thing."

But that is not to say she views all forms of worship equally. Citing the phenomenon of "druidic celebrations and pseudo-Celtic ceremonies", she says: "I think James Joyce was right when he said, 'Why would you abandon the Roman Catholic Church for something without intellectual integrity; for something without roots?'"

Some humanists go further than King and attend Mass at Christmas - largely, it seems, out a sense of duty to practising Catholics in their families. "Whether or not to go to Mass is probably the biggest issue for our members at Christmas," says James. "The last time I went to Mass was a Midnight Mass."

But humanists aren't alone in facing these dilemmas. Other lapsed Catholics wonder whether it is worth skipping Christmas Mass if it means offending a parent or a loved-one at home. Still more wonder whether they will be missing out on something themselves.

Joe Mullally, a self-proclaimed "traditional healer" who embraces everything from angel readings to shamanism, continues to go to Mass at Christmas as he finds it "quite poignant". While he has ceased practising Catholicism, and avoids the church at other times of the year, he likes the sense of tradition associated with Advent, particularly "the altar list of the dead", which, he says, "acts as a link to our ancestors". He is even "happy" to say the Apostolic Creed.

"I would count myself as a lapsed Catholic but I would still have a lot of Christian leanings. So I kind of have a foot in both camps." A father of five children, Mullally runs "holistic" retreats in Manor Kilbride, Co Wicklow. Notwithstanding his line of work, he has yet to encounter any hostility at his local church. "Nobody has approached me," he says. And if they did? "Well, I wouldn't want to stay in a community that wasn't tolerant. Nor would I like to feel I was making anyone feel uncomfortable."

Some priests can get irritated about lapsed Catholics turning up for Christmas Mass. But Mgr Denis O'Callaghan says "we would have a wonderful welcome for those people" at his parish in Mallow, Co Cork. "When people come to Mass at Christmas it takes them back to their roots. The greatest of the mysteries is the birth of our saviour and whatever foundation there is in them will be revived then." A scholar of theology at Maynooth for 25 years, Mgr O'Callaghan notes that in the early centuries of the church there was no obligation to go to Mass. He suggests the influx of worshippers at Christmas is all the more welcome because "they come out of personal conviction" rather than a sense of duty.

That said, "people also feel guilty". He says: "They think that if they don't go to Mass at Christmas, and Easter, it would be as though they had turned a corner, and there'd be no going back." But it is not just Mass they come back for. There is a "big take-up" of Confession at Christmas too. "People are looking for an effective service of repentance," says Mgr O'Callaghan.

His experience would suggest that Ireland's spiritual landscape is not as fractured as might be thought. People are less willing to accept the authority of the Church but that doesn't necessarily mean they see no value in Christianity.

King says the religion of her upbringing "remains inspiring at a human level". And Mullally identifies a "truth" within Christ's moral teachings. "People associate 'alternative spirituality' with selfishness," he says. But most people go on their spiritual journey out of selflessness. The journey to me is all about reconnecting directly with God."

If such feelings are widespread within Generation X-mas then Christmas (and not Giftmas, Winterval, Yule or any such "Christ"-less interloper) will be with us for some time yet.

Mgr O'Callaghan is certainly confident about the feast day's future. In his view, a greater force - a force beyond words - is at work. "I don't think people make a cold, calm decision to come back to the church at Christmas," he says. "There's something far, far deeper going on. It's not a deliberate decision but a spiritual trajectory which brings them back."

Joe Humphreys is an Irish Times journalist and author of The Story of Virtue: Universal Lessons on How to Live published by the Liffey Press, €16.95