People who are not Christian celebrate because it has become a cultural holiday. Generations have grown up celebrating, and society as a whole celebrates with school closure, mall Santa's, decorations, holiday music, etc. For some people it is about family and gift giving, nothing else.
There is an erroneous belief that Christmas was instituted to replace a pagan festival. Not so.
It was the Puritans who first rejected Christmas. Their beliefs held that if it wasn't in the Bible it wasn't so. Since the Bible doesn't say Jesus was born on December 25th then it must be a date the Catholic Church made up.
Later on some scholars began assertion, without any basis'; that the reason the church took this date (since it wasn't t 'scriptural) was because, back in the third century, it wanted to stomp down the Roman festival of Saturnalia, dedicated to the god Saturn and replace it with Christmas.
The problem with that theory is that Saturnalia always ended on Dec. 23. So, here 's a good question: why would Christians have put Christmas on Dec. 25, two days after Saturnalia if they wanted to wipe it out?
Similarly, a claim is made that Christmas steals from the Roman pagan celebration of "Sol lnvicta" (the Feast of the Unconquered Sun). This feast was created, whole cloth, by Emperor Aurelius in 274 A.D, in an attempt to
bolster the religion of the Roman Empire by honoring the sun god: This feast, which occurred around the same time as Saturnalia, was not steeped in Roman tradition. It was created on whim, not historical basis.
Far from Christmas trying· to obscure or override this feast, scholar Thomas Talley in his work, "The Origins of the Liturgical Year" observes that "Sol Invicta" was a Roman response to the practice of upstart Christianity's celebration of Christmas in late December.
So where did the December 25th date come from? From scripture actually:
1n Luke's Gospel, 1:8-9, we are told, "Once when he [Zechariah] was serving as priest in his division's turn before God, according to the practice of the priestly service, he was chosen by Jot to enter the sanctuary of
the Lord to bum incense." It says that the Angel Gabriel appeared to him announcing (in Luke .1:13): "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall name him John." In an early tradition from text called "De solstitia," it is asserted that this priestly ceremonial duty Zechariah was performing was part of the festival of Tabernacles (at the autumnal equinox). This places the conception of St. John the Baptist at the autumnal equinox,
which the Romans observed on Sept. 25.
1n Luke 1:36, when the Angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she is called by God to bear the Son of the Most High, he drops in this tidbit: "And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren." Six months from the time of John's conception in the womb of Elizabeth, would mark March 25 as the date of Jesus' conception by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. This understanding is likewise asserted by the third century Roman and Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus, who also dates Jesus' conception to March 25.
From all of this we, and the early Christian Church, binding its faith in the Scripture, would date the birth of John the Baptist to the summer solstice, and the nativity of the Lord to the winter solstice - Dec. 25