Absolutely! You are totally right about studying religious art- In college I took numerous Ren. art classes- it was all religious in nature! 
I actually love carols- I’ve been known to sing them in the shower! It was the awkwardness we felt as part of non-optional “Winter concert” type performance that struck me!
To pile on with Ms Robyn and Gala Matrix …
It’s no coincidence. Probably cavemen were having special rites with fires around the depths of winter. Christians choose this time of the year as Christ’s designated birthday because there already were Solstice celebrations extant: keep the celebration, now it’s in honor of Christ, 'sright? As to Hannukah, the story of the miracle of the lights was added centuries later to glom together the commemoration of a war with extant solstice celebrations.
But diversity ≠ divisiveness.
Hannukah does commemorate a real war in which Jews were willing to kill and be killed in order to preserve their freedom to be different than the overwhelming other culture of the time. It is a minor holiday and the irony of elevating it to a gift giving extravaganza so that Jewish boys and girls do not have to feel bad about being different is lost on most in America. More’s the pity.
Please enjoy Christmas. Enjoy it as a spiritual holiday in honor of your savior’s birthday or as a pagan winter solstice rite or as a secular paean to consumption and “stuff”. Whatever waxes your rocket. But please do not insist that any one, let alone everyone else has to celebrate “the holiday season” too lest it ruin your fun.
In none of those ways is it my holiday. You will have to lean to live with that.