@slimebeast
Your view of Christmas is fundamentally distorted. Firstly it wasn't a Christian holiday it was a very popular pagan holiday. Pagans have a natural affinity for solstices. December 21st is basically the shortest day of the year. When Christianity moved in the religion basically took over these holidays, and it put its own spin on the events. Basically it is a good tool for conversion. It is harder to sell people on your religion when it means the members can no longer go to the major seasonal festival.
That said Christianity once it was well established basically dropped the holiday like a bad habit. Remember Christianity wants to focus on the death of Jesus not his birth. More then that there are a lot of other reasons that Christianity didn't want to talk up the nativity. Christianity basically swiped the holiday to keep it out of the hands of Pagans, but once they were gone it also didn't want to keep the holiday, and its obviously Pagan origin. So for a long time Christmas got the down play.
A testament to the holiday however is even without major church backing it actually endured up until the modern era, and never lost its popularity. During the middle of the seventeenths century Christian churches were forced back to the holiday by their flock. Who felt that they wanted a religious component to the holiday they were celebrating. They basically felt a need to justify their celebration. The church didn't want anything to do with the holiday, but the people demanded some form of religious service.
That said there isn't any real cross over between the secular holiday and the religious holiday. None of the symbology has anything to do with Jesus. Basically most of the familiar trappings of the holiday were entirely contrived in the last 150 years. They were basically created by commercial interests that wanted a avenue for selling goods to consumers. Think about it a holiday that has you buying plants in the dead of winter. Has you buying toys, candy, and strange food. Oh and don't forget the cards, and the lights, and the songs about magical figments.
Christianity forced itself on the holiday, didn't want the holiday, abandoned the holiday, and was later forced back to the holiday. Then we have the modern holiday which was the creation of main street, and pretty well cleansed of any religious meaning what so ever. Christianity doesn't own Christmas, but it did at least have its name on it, but for some that isn't good enough. Capitalism owns Christmas, and that is what is being celebrated. Most certainly not Jesus, and now you know the churches had to get back into the act.
Anyway its bad karma on the part of some Christians. Which is only going to backfire, because people have shown that historically speaking they aren't going to drop the holiday. That said they are more then willing to drop the name if Christian groups insist on using it as a ramrod. There is a saying about quiting while you are ahead. Christianity at least had its name on the box even if they didn't own the holiday inside. Anyway its a whole lot of grief with no damned excuse for it. Nobody complained about the holiday as long as the religion wasn't front and center, and it was entirely take it or leave it.
