Christmas finds its ancient roots in Winter Solstice celebrations. The sun is at its lowest point in the heavens, the fields are bare, and the days are their shortest. Agricultural societies are unprepared for the spiritual calling of the Elements and Cosmos, and are disheartened. They mark the transition to lengthening days as a birth of a deity that will reach maturation (months later) to replenish the crops. Both the Egyptians and Mesopatamians celebrated the birth of their gods (Horus and Marduk, respectively) over a twelve-day period, giving us the modern twelve days of Christmas. Around the world, the darkest days of the year were the appropriate time to swear fealty to the Sun and petition for His renewal.
The Roman emperor Aurelian proclaimed December 25th to be Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birth of the Unconquered Sun. The celebration was known as the Saturnalia. Romans held feasts, visited friends, exchanged gifts, and decorated with lit candles and green wreaths. In the fourth century, Christiandom began to emphasize the birth of Christ as a worthy holiday (previously, all emphasis was upon Easter), and it coincided with the feast of Epiphany (January 6). Eventually, the Church gave up trying to compete with the Roman Saturnalia celebrations, and employed their ever-successful tactic of displacement. It absorbed the infidels' holiday and scrambled the cosmology a bit to eliminate inconsistencies.
The rebirth of the sun,
the birth of the Son.
It is easier to replace a people's cosmology than to suppress their urge to celebrate. The renewal of the God was retained, although the reverence for the Sun and Nature was discarded.
The new Pagan movements are eager to reclaim attention to the rites of Nature, the heavenly bodies, and to Yule traditions in honor of the cyclical seasons (Yule - or Jule - being an ancient word for "wheel"). While denying the spirituality/nature schism of the Christian tradition, they ignore Cosmotic Nature and concentrate upon the fluctuations of weather within our biosphere. Yuletide is still a time to hide from the Cold. Thoughts are upon feasts and decor and revelry, but not upon emptiness and peaceful solitude. There are no considerations for erotic exposure of the flesh to the Winter Elements.
The Winter Solstice is holy simply because so much of our biosphere comes to resemble Cosmotic Nature. We are fortunate to become immersed in these Cosmotic virtues. It is our opportunity to reflect upon the Cosmos in the midst of day-to-day darkness, emptiness of landscape, and (most of all) the Cold. These are not conditions that seize us unaware, but settle gently upon our lives with the changing of seasons, allowing us to embrace them in turn at a comfortable pace.
Presented by the Cosmotic Order, Chicago Chapter