There's always been a lot of jargon about the meaning of christmas and what christmas spirit is. The fact of the matter is that at the heart of it, it is about the birth of Jesus Christ (hence the name "christmas") It was established in winter by the catholic church during the middle ages when they were trying to convert the germans and anglo-saxons. The germans had a pagan holiday worshiping the sun-god Helios. And in order to preserve order the church decided to turn it into a christian holiday. The Christmas Tree is a pagan symbol, the wreath was also a pagan symbol, but of course anything can be adapted. I know that Jesus wasn't born in winter, that would be crazy, but that's the way the church had to do it without people revolting.
Jesus' birthday is remembered because he was unlike anyone that ever lived. He fulfilled every old testament prophecy, and healed the sick and cured the mentally disturbed with a single word, or a single touch. I'm not trying to get preachy here, but as a christian i think that christmas has been commercialized way too much. We're worshipping Santa instead of Christ, which is pretty sad.
Santa was originally Saint Nicholas, a German man who went around on christmas giving toys and other things to the poor children and the orphans.
