ignorance fought, mea culpa.
Wow. I didn’t even check my calendar. I guess I was having a bad day.
runningdude and UDS: Help me refine my ignorance then. Christmas, as popularly celebrated today (at least in Western countries) is often criticized as an extravagant and overly commercialized gift-shopping orgy, a practice allegedly fomented by department stores in the late 1800s. Am I correctly understanding at least that aspect of Christmas?
And, however important Christmas might have been in much earlier times, was it traditionally a gift-giving festival? A little bit? A whole lot? Not at all? I know the modern theory of Christmas gift-giving is claimed to follow from the gifting by the Magi. Was that theory in play all along?
I believe gift-giving was a feature of the pre-Christian Roman festival, and the Christians took it on along with the date. And, for a festival which celebrates, basically, the Incarnation, finding a material way of expressing love and joy is not entirely inappropriate, so I think it was a good fit.
But the idea that you give really big (expensive) gifts, that gift-giving is at the centre of the festival – that probably is the influence of modern capitalism.
Other evidence of the significance of the festival is that it had its own music – a wealth of it, in fact. There’s a huge stock of Christmas carols (and another, slightly smaller, stock of Advent carols) from the medieval period onwards. And these are definitely carols written for communal singing, at a time when congregational singing was not normally a feature of church services. You wouldn’t have this vast stock of music being produced if people weren’t singing it. Obviously, people sang about Christmas in a way that they didn’t (and still don’t) sing about Easter. And the fact that they had different carols for Advent and for Christmas itself is also telling, I think, in terms of assessing how much impact the festival made in the cycle of the year.
(Actually, that’s another part of the Christmas package that’s likely a Christian contribution, not a pagan inheritance – carols.)
In the Middle Ages, Europeans tended to celebrate Christmas by praying, singing, dancing, eating, drinking and playing. There were nativity plays and other traditional plays that were put on at Christmas. Christmas masses were said. Carols were sung and danced. Public sports and private games were played. And people would eat. Rich households would have large, elaborate meals, and peasants would generally be given meat by their lords. One of the traditions, which did come from German paganism, was that of the Yule Boar, and in Germany and England pork was often eaten on Christmas.
Gift giving happened, but that was tied to a Roman custom of giving gifts on New Years Day, and not really linked to Christmas.
For most Eastern Orthodox churches using the Julian calendar, the date is 19 January by our calendar.
I think most early Protestants simply condemned the excess of this, and other, holidays. Just like we (most modern Christians, not just Protestants) like to do today.
Santa Claus is an amalgam of various figures, one of whom was pre-Christian or at least non-Christian: Odin. According to Norse myth, supernatural events were more common during the midwinter festival of Yuletide (whence ‘Yule log’, while we’re on the subject), including the Wild Hunt, lead by Odin with his long white beard and flying horse. Odin was also known as a bringer of gifts.
Christmas elements that predate Christianity? Well, there’s Au, and Ag…
Wassailing as the Saxons understood it was apparently just a call-and-response drunkfest, so I don’t think that really counts.
My choice of words was ironic.
Is there really any evidence of decorating an evergreen tree, especially bringing one into the house, for Yuletide before the Late Middle Ages?
There are a whole lot of ‘Pagan customs’ that really aren’t. I was amazed when I found out how NON-ancient the Maypole is.
I’m pretty sure Xm has been around for billions of years at least.
By coincidence just yesterday my local NPR station, WXXI-AM carried a short spot on the very topic of this thread, from “Don’t Know Much about Mythology” and the speaker pointed out the difference between focusing on evergreen trees outside as a symbol of life transcending winter, and actually taking them inside. So, yeah, you’re right on track. 
Snow. Snow definitely predates Christianity and Christmas.