Christmas is not a Biblical holiday and the Hebrews never celebrated it. The ancient Semites, including Hebrews and the Ishmaelites (early Arabs) undoubtably considered the position of the stars important at the solstice (just like Babylonians, etc), but the Hebrews did not celebrate stars.
The New Testament does not ordain a celebration for Jesus birth and the evidence from the story suggest the birth was in September (in our calendar). The Hebrews uses a different calendar anyway. The Three Kings may be stars placed in the story to give the story of Jesus more credibility in a time when astrology was considered science. The Gospels do not indicate the Three Kings arrived at His birth, but only that they came sometime after.
The holiday now called Christmas wa a Roman festival called Saturnalia. Other "pagan" religions had a multi-day soltice period festival as well. The Roman Church added the Christmas Festival to Christianity to make it blend with the Roman festivals. The English Protestants banned Christmas and it fell out of favor until Queen Victoria's German husband brought the German Christmas tradition to the English speaking world. In the US, it was not celebrated until the 1870s except by Germans and Dutch.
Many Protestants considered it to be pagan. They cited a verse from the Book of Isaiah, where the prophet denounced the practices of Aramean and Phoenecian fertility cults. Isaiah says that these cults cut down trees, decorated them, and put the trees into their homes. Isaiah said that was forbidden.
Many people who brag to me about how religious they are have these forbidden trees in December. I tease them by pointing out that they are defying their own faith.
