I'm pagan or rather nothing. We celebrate winter holiday rather than Jesus's birthday. He wasn't even born in December.
Bringing a tree in the house and decorating it comes from the Baltics. There are bunch of other customs taken from the vikings.
Winters are so cold and snowy in Northern Europe and who didn't want a nice smelling evergreen in the house. All other trees had lost their leaves in December. We actually also bring birch tree in the house in June.
The trees were also fed the farm animals since they missed eating greens.
We celebrate rather Yule or Yule time during winter solstice.
We don't stop celebrating it because christians want to celebrate theirs at about the same time. We just don't call it Christmas, but you can and I know it's the Yule you are talking about.
The traditions and meaning are different from family to family, so you can have yours and I can have mine or nothing at all.

Christians celebrate "the birth of Christ"
Many different people celebrate Christmas

It really bugs you OP, that we get to celebrate Christmas? I pity you. Perhaps this year you can pray that your mean little heart gets to grow in size?

I'm Hindu, we celebrate Christmas, and we also have no problem saying "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays".

Why we celebrate it - that has already been answered in this thread. It's a part of American culture, and we are Hindu-Americans. It's a fun winter holiday. It's a fun family holiday. It's a season to be jolly.

It's just part of the culture here in America and even though Christmas is religious, it is also secular--and very commercialized. There is nothing inherently religious about decorating the outside of your house, mistletoe, eggnog, snowmen, reindeer, ornaments, exchanging presents, making cookies or getting together with family. It's a time for families to create the traditions that matter to them.

Why do Christian families take their kids to see Santa? Maybe because it's fun!

Anonymous wrote:Many non christians celebrate Christmas! Atheists, Hindus, some muslims, etc. Why? Why the hell not!

Some atheists were raised Christian so that wouldn't surprise me that they celebrate Christmas. I find it really odd. I am not religious/Jewish and I find it really uncomfortable celebrating Christmas. A few years I have gotten my husband a tiny tree as he celebrates it (was Christian, now atheist) and he likes having one. Got him a bigger one for this year but at best it will go up for a day or two and come down very quickly. I hate having it but I know my husband misses having one.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a Christian and a minister. The things you listed are pagan in origin. Christianity adopted them in an effort to combine the nativity with well-established pagan winter festivals. Lights and festivities make the celebration of the birth of Jesus much more fun! So anyone can celebrate the winter holiday and more importantly, Christ would welcome all to the celebration regardless of spiritual path.

How would you know something like that? It suggests that there is something in the Bible that indicates that Christ would want people who don't believe he is the Messiah to be celebrating his birth.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a Christian and a minister. The things you listed are pagan in origin. Christianity adopted them in an effort to combine the nativity with well-established pagan winter festivals. Lights and festivities make the celebration of the birth of Jesus much more fun! So anyone can celebrate the winter holiday and more importantly, Christ would welcome all to the celebration regardless of spiritual path.

Thank you very much. You nipped that right in the bud

Anonymous wrote:I'm a Christian and a minister. The things you listed are pagan in origin. Christianity adopted them in an effort to combine the nativity with well-established pagan winter festivals. Lights and festivities make the celebration of the birth of Jesus much more fun! So anyone can celebrate the winter holiday and more importantly, Christ would welcome all to the celebration regardless of spiritual path.

This has to be one of the best responses I've read here.

Many non christians celebrate Christmas! Atheists, Hindus, some muslims, etc. Why? Why the hell not!

I celebrate it because my DH and children are Christian. I go to church 2x per year - on Christmas Eve and Easter (there are plenty of Christians who attend less often than I do!). Other than the church going part many of the Christmas traditions aren't terribly religious. Santa, holiday lights, tree, even gifts (we exchange more than myrrh for gifts).

I celebrate Christmas because the atheist holidays suck.

My Jewish SIL and her extended family celebrates Christmas...it is bigger for them than Hannukah in terms of actual celebrating. They do all the secular fun, which made things easy when all of their kids married non Jews.

My son's friend's family is hindu and does a big Christmas celebration with all their Indian friends. In fact, I know of several hindus who celebrate Christmas. They all say something along the lines of hindu being a multi theist religion so they don't have issues with Christmas being a Christian holiday.

My persian (non-Christian) hairdresser celebrates Christmas. She said it is one of her favorite holidays.

I'm a Christian and a minister. The things you listed are pagan in origin. Christianity adopted them in an effort to combine the nativity with well-established pagan winter festivals. Lights and festivities make the celebration of the birth of Jesus much more fun! So anyone can celebrate the winter holiday and more importantly, Christ would welcome all to the celebration regardless of spiritual path.

If you are a non-Christian who celebrates Christmas but not the festivals of your religion, can you share why? By celebrating, I mean decorating and having a tree, doing a gift-exchange, decorating the yard. Is it so the kids don't feel left out?