How about Kwanzaa?

With the "winter holidays"* here, I have been looking around with a careful eye, taking it all in and looking for wriggle room. I enoy celebrating the winter solstice as much as the next person. I enjoy getting together with family and eating good food. I enjoy watching the snow come down and settle on evergreen boughs while sitting inside wearing wool socks and flannel and drinking hot chocolate. I enjoy time off from work.
I do not enjoy consumerism. I am opposed to people spending money on useless stuff to give to others just because they suspect the other person has purchased something equally useless for them. I object to hypothetical saints clothed in red that further feed the materialistic impulses of young people. I am opposed to celebrating the birth of a man who, even if he was a great spiritual guide, was not any more "divine" than the rest of us and, furthermore, wasn't even born at this time of year.
So, we got a tree this year but all along I've been thinking: what about when we have kids? I feel you have to give them something. The whole country is turned upside down during the holiday season and if you don't attach some meaning to all the hub-bub, the children will take what's being offered elsewhere. So, is there some more humanist, secular "holiday" out there for people like me?
Here's the thing. The humanists and the Unitarians don't have holidays. I've been looking into it and I really think what I am looking for is Kwanzaa, which is a celebration and an affirmation of African culture and African American community. The holiday is based upon wonderful and important principles: unity; self-determination; collective work; cooperative economics; purpose; creativity; and faith in one another. It is a cultural holiday - with no religious content whatsoever.
I know, I know. Am I going to be just another white person who steals African American culture, distorts it, and turns it to my own ends without any regard for who it belongs to and why it exists? Is it OK for a white person with a white partner and hypothetical white children to make Kwanzaa the central holiday of the season while living in a majority white neighborhood in the most segregated city in the country? If I had my way, would Kwanzaa end up being like jazz and swing dancing - elements of culture that have been denuded of their African American roots?
This is what the official website has to say but I am not sure how to interpret it:
Kwanzaa is clearly an African holiday created for African peoples. But other people can and do celebrate it, just like other people participate in Cinco de Mayo besides Mexicans; Chinese New Year besides Chinese; Native American pow wows besides Native Americans.
The question is, under what circumstances? There are both communal and public celebrations. One can properly hold a communal celebration dedicated essentially to community persons. But in a public context, say public school or college, we can properly have public celebrations which include others. How this is done depends on particular circumstances. But in any case, particular people should always be in control of and conduct their own celebrations. Audience attendance is one thing; conducting a ritual is another.
Not OK. I know, I know.


*this, apparently, is the diplomatic way of talking about the season of consumerism that has descended upon us.