Matt,
Do you understand what that sounds like? On one hand you say Christmas is a pagan holiday but on the other hand you say that to you it is also then a CIVIL HOLIDAY. It makes it sound like you can JUSTIFY partaking of the BENEFITS of that holiday by REDEFINING your meaning of the holiday. Do you understand that to an unbeliever it makes you sound and look like a hypocrite because at that point it sounds like you are doing a runaround the very thing you proclaim?
I don't view it as hypocritical at all, and most unbelievers would make the same distinction. Christmas can certainly be a civil and common holiday that has no affiliation with anything religious. A large portion of our country views it as such. In that regard, it's no different than Thanksgiving, President's Day or the 4th of July. In that regard, I have no problem taking the day off that my work makes me take off to observe a civil holiday. I actually really don't care if people celebrate a completely secular form of christmas.
What does concern me is when people celebrate christmas as the birth of Jesus knowing full-well that's not when He was born. To me the religious celebration of christmas is more hypocritical to the world than anything else.
"Yes, we know Jesus wasn't born on this day, but we're going to celebrate it anyway by following the traditions of man, which Jesus told people not to do."