Now that the Christmas season is coming to a close, I'd like to tell you all what you just celebrated. You see, for the longest time the church has had a habit of "assmilating" the holidays of other religions in order to bring those religions into the fold. Christmas is a cross between two such pagan holidays, the yule festival and the celebration of the winter solstice. Traditionally yule was a time when people would decorate trees with candles and colorful streamers, to provide light and brightness to contrast the lengthening winter nights. The Roman holiday was a bit more... Pagan and involved a feast. And a massive orgy. That's right! We took a toman orgy and said we don't want to get rid of it.... Let's say it's Jesus birthday to justify the gifts and the feast, well sweep the sexual escapades under the trees skirt, and we'll call it Christ mass. And there you go.
For further reading I suggest looking up some star charts. The time correlating with the star of Bethlehem was nowhere to be seen in December, and in fact places Jesus birthday around mid spring.
However nobody wants to tell the Easter Bunny to move his holiday....
Happy Roman orgy day!