Christians really need to give up the idea that Christmas has anything to do with the birth of Christ. It is really void of all meaning anymore, what with the consumerism that drives the culture we live in, we can fight and claw but in reality, we might as well just give it up. Maybe we can create our own alter holiday, the day after or something. Or maybe in October. I would bet a large figure of money that for well less than 10% of American Christians, Christmas is not tainted by consumerism, who are we kidding? Then we use the excuse that we don't want to keep this tradition from our children...yeah, like they aren't spoiled enough the way it is. (Shaq brought a truck load of bikes, PS2's, etc to the children in LA yesterday, how about food for their parents and college scholarships to break the cylce of depravity...forgive my cynicism.) To add to that, this holiday has pagan traditions, as Missler notes the following in his K-House news:

The date of December 25th, which was officially proclaimed by the church fathers in AD 440, was actually a vestige of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia, observed near the winter solstice, which itself was among the many pagan traditions inherited from the earlier Babylonian priesthood.

I'm sorry, I just can't do it, and that is why I have become the Scrooge of Christmas. Yet, as Vox Day points out, it doesn't matter, "For to us a child is born..." and that child would sacrifice Himself on a Roman cross to bring you and me in His Kingdom. Whether we celebrate it or not, it is there and for that I am thankful!