I was under the impression that Christmas was a conglomeration of the Winter Solstice and Saturnalia bright into vogue by the Catholic church to make Christianity more palatable to the pagans in the Roman Empire after Christianity was deemed the "official" religion of the empire.
I know very well what Christmas is "supposed" to signify, but where in the Bible does it say we are to honor the birth of Jesus? His death and resurrection, sure I can see that, but since he was crucified during Passover, wouldn't Passover be the appropriate time to observe and get rid of "Easter" which is Spring Equinox observation?
First, the annual holy days of Israel were shadows and types, and those are no longer applicable under the New Covenant. Colossians 2:16-17 discusses this. Compare these verses with Hebrews 10:1-2 and Hebrews 9:9-11. It is plain that these days were grouped by Paul with irrelevant things.
Second, the Old Covenant in its entirety is done away with. II Corinthians 3, Acts 15, Galatians 3 and 4, Hebrews 8 and 9, and Romans 7:1-6 covers this. The holidays, as well as the Sabbath and clean/unclean meat laws were "boundary markers" that God used to separate Israel from the Gentile nations.
Third, almost all of the claims about Easter and Christmas being "pagan" are part of the slanders that Alexander Hislop generated from his book "Two Babylons" claiming that Christianity was affected by the "Babylonian Mystery Religion" which he claimed was the worship of Nimrod, Semiramis, and Tammuz. Hislop was a moron and his work reflected his stupidity. He employed bad logic to arrive at his conclusions.
I used to be an Armstrongite who believed the propaganda that is created by Sabbath/festival/clean unclean meat guys in order to perpetuate their beliefs. They misrepresent church history in order to promote their bad doctrines.
Some books you might read on this topic are by Ralph Woodrow, who held the positions that Christmas and Easter were pagan holidays, but recanted his position due to clear evidence that he was in error (mostly caused by Hislop's book):
Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Association
Christmas Reconsidered, Easter: Is It Pagan? and Three Days and Three Nights are the three pertinent books.
By the way, the Wednesday- Saturday crucifixion and resurrection scenario doesn't pan out. The Friday-Sunday scenario perfectly fits Scripture. The book explains the problem with the Wednesday - Saturday scenario.
Christ was crucified on the Day of Preparation, which is synonymous with Friday, and the next day was a weekly Sabbath, which was also the first day of Unleavened Bread (a high day). The word used for Sabbath in the pertinent verses is sabbaton, and sabbaton has a weekly context; it is not talking about an annual holy day. In fact, the word
sabbaton is translated "week" in other verses of the Bible. For example, "
mia sabbaton" is the first day of the week.
The phrase "third day" is an idiomatic Hebrewism that implies the day after tomorrow. The only verse that is out of line with this view is Matthew 12:40, and my understanding is that 'three days and three nights" is an emphatic expression of the same concept. However, even if the one verse is out of line, I'm going to go with church history.
By the way, this wasn't a question until the last few hundred years until Sabbath-keepers tried to use the argument to press the Sabbath issue.
If you are getting your information from Armstrongite groups such as Restored Church of God, United Church of God, Worldwide Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, and Living Church of God, you are drinking from the toilet bowl of theology. I was part of them for a decade and they don't know what they are talking about. They are slanderous Christianity-haters. Some of the darker Hebrew Roots and Messianic Jew groups are basically of the same ilk.