Introducing Yourself as a Pagan / Witch

When we get new jobs, make new friends etc it always pops up at some point during social interaction. with some people it's easiest to avoid the subject but sometimes it's hard generally to mention yourself as being Pagan, or even worse, a Witch.

My workmates have gotten used to me having certain dates off work and know that I might do some things differently but they still get curious whenever witchcraft is mentioned, which doesn't happen often. The only time it did was mentioning I spent time at the weekend at witchfest.

I was wondering how you guys get past the subject and reactions you've had.

The last time I got into it was at work when asked what I was doing for Christmas and I replied I'm with my boyfriends family on Christmas and at mine on the 21st. When asked why I explained because my family is Pagan and we have a Pagan holiday on the 21st called Yule.

She asked me a little later on politely what Paganism is and said she always thought of it as something to do with the Devil. My reply to this is we don't believe in a Devil, the reason it's associated with the Devil is because of political and social changes in celtic times and also Witchcraft hysteria during King James' reign I think it was. Usually this seems to be a neutral...and long winded way of introducing it avoiding too many strange questions. At least this is how I like to introduce it.

My favourite reaction from mentioning I went to the Beltane Bash - A Pagan celebration again was "Oh that's the pure religion isn't it?". which is completely my though on Paganism. Many people stumble onto Paganism without being taught, it's something you might feel since childhood and even if it's pushed away from you you can still feel it inside you.

xxx

This has started coming up for me recently. There is one young man I work with who happened to overhear a conversation that I was having with a customer while serving on the tills... I'm not sure how I got into the topic but we started talking about witchcraft because the lady I was talking with was also a witch. Now this staff member keeps walking passed me making comments like "I can't believe you tell customers your a green witch" to which I tend to just laugh it off.
The other staff that do know understand and sometimes just ask simple questions which I'm always happy to get into if I have the time. I always answer with what my views are and explain that it is different for different people as we do not all believe the same thing but that it is our diversity that makes us so special. and they seem to like that as an answer.
I don't really think there is an easy way to explain it and there will always be some people that just mock us because they are too young or uneducated to understand. But I think the best way of dealing with them is to either laugh them off or ignore them.