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Yeah, I'm pretty sympathetic to this struggle because I've struggled with it over the years. What has helped me is recognizing the different ways the church has interacted with culture over the years. At times the church has separated itself from culture and at other times it has infiltrated and won over the culture. In my opinion, our celebration of Christmas was an infiltration take-over of a pagan holiday and I think that is a good thing. Although you are right that there are some relative symbolism and practices that remain, those symbols and practices no longer have any of that pagan meaning behind them. For many Christians, the trees and the lights and the presents are completely surrounded by Christian imagery and meaning (although, I do realize that some people are being led astray by Santa Claus and other ridiculousness). When I read through the Prologue of John 1, I see much of our Christmas imagery is when it comes to Jesus birth.

In studying early Christianity, they actually did this pretty often. One of the things that struck me the most when I visited Turkey and Greece as the fact that many of the early churches were placed in old pagan temples. When the city was converted to Christianity, rather than tearing down the old temple and building something new, they just took it over and began worshiping God in that temple. It was almost like a constant reminder of Christ's victory over the pagan "gods." I see our celebration of Christmas, done in the appropriate way, in a similar light.

I also don't have a problem with December 25th not necessarily being on, or around, Jesus' actual birthday (although there are arguments that have placed it close to Dec 25th). It not about having the exact date, but being intentional about remembering one of the most important events in Redemptive history.

Also, no worries on the tangent :-)