With Christmas almost here, it is the season of the year where certain people take Christmas so seriously as a cultural holiday that they champion it as a crucial part of Christian life or attack it due to real or imagined pagan roots. Like many issues, it is not very difficult at all to understand the truths that can be known about the matter for everyone willing to forsake assumptions of all kinds, but to ask this of many people strikes them in their deluded state as more than they can handle. Focusing exclusively on whether historical evidence suggests (though it cannot prove) if Christmas had pagan beginnings as a holiday already entails erroneous priorities. The real question of significance here is whether the holiday matters at all even if Christianity is true.
Whether it is pretending like Christmas as a holiday has no similarity or derivation from pagan roots or pretending like there is anything truly urgent about fighting misguided "culture wars" about Christmas, some Christians treat the Christmas holiday as if it is far more philosophically and theologically vital than it is. In reality, there is neither a purely logical nor Biblical reason to even care much about Christmas as an issue on any level, and to demand that people celebrate it or to condemn it as immoral both lapse into the stupidity of legalism, of adding to Biblical moral commands in the name of the Bible, which is a hopelessly contradictory goal. December 25th is almost certainly not when Jesus was born as it is, so even this supposed reason for fervently celebrating Christmas as a Christian is irrelevant. In fact, there is no way to actually demonstrate, rather than assume, the exact time of year Jesus would have been born at.
The Bible does not specify the time of year at which Jesus was born, though it does provide information about the political context of this story. Christmas is ultimately one of many arbitrary holidays people celebrate out of culturally manipulated sense of familiarity. To know this and still personally enjoy Christmas celebration as a rationalist and/or a Christian is not irrational as long as one does not embrace any assumptions about the matter. To either realize or not realize this and treat Christmas as if revering it is a mark of philosophical or Christian maturity is just asinine. Even the excuse that people "need" a specific day to celebrate the birth of Jesus on is erroneous because such a thing is neither prescribed by the Bible nor something that only deserves to be celebrated on a single day of the year.
Yes, attacking Christmas and all who celebrate it as pagans (or Christians succumbing to paganism) is stupid because pagan or Christian origins of the formal holiday have absolutely nothing to do with why most people celebrate it now. All the same, Christmas is not some morally special holiday that means one sins if one does not celebrate it. Deuteronomy 4:2 would actually condemn those who think Christmas celebration is a moral obligation on the Biblical worldview, for there is not even a hint of an implied command to celebrate the birth of Jesus on an annual basis, and certainly not on December 25th specifically--what an arbitrary date!
Whether Christmas as a holiday has predominantly pagan or Christian roots--or some of both--it has nothing to do with whether Christianity is true, with providing evidence for Christianity's likely veracity, or illuminating anything of real philosophical substance except how irrational what many people believe about an issue like Christmas really is. Celebrate it or do not celebrate it as you prefer; there is no sin in either choice if Christianity is true. Either way, there are far more foundational, grand, and pressing philosophical and theological things to focus on. After all, I have not met or head of a single person who complains about Christmas as being a "pagan" day in the present or who focuses on defending Christmas who ever even got something as basic and vital as the epistemological self-verification of logical axioms right.
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