Our family has only one set of immediate relatives: my dad's sister and her husband ("Aunt Lucy n Uncle Roger") and their children, our cousins. They're the church family. My two older brothers and I were raised with secular Christmases; our experiences were like Ralphie's minus snow.
Yesterday we had a nice holiday with the cousins. As a kid, I always knew they liked us and looked forward to seeing us, but suspected they thought of us as "the bads". Our family didn't go to church like everybody else, or even temple, and was somehow naughty to the degree that we chewed gum in class when the teacher forbade it.
As a kid, in the 1970s, there were messages that secular is shameful. Where did the messages come from? Who knows. Last night we left San Ramon noting the sincerity between the cousins (them) and us. They think we're good people, this is reciprocal.