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OK, this is written from my personal belief. I am a Catholic and a convinced man of faith, so please read this as it is intended, which is my point of view and my belief.
Aw c'mon guys, give me a break! If one believes that Jesus is in fact our Saviour and that in its early stages Christianity co-opted other holiday observances to assist people in understanding their new faith, what is the problem? I could care less WHEN the actual birth of Christ occured. I care THAT it occured. If we use a convenient day such as 25 DEC, so what? If it celebrated someone else but we now use that date to celebrate the birth of Jesus, then great. I believe that the object of the enterprise is to explain the message of Christ so that people can more easily accept it. We are not celebrating pagan rites, we are celebrating the birth of Christ. On halloween we are celebrating all hallows eve where we pray for all those who have died. And yes, growing up we did pray for all souls and the next day we prayed in thanksgiving for all who were in Heaven. Even as a small kid I clearly remember the Nuns explaining the meaning of All souls day and all saints day and how the halloween celebration came from earlier beliefs and superstitions which were simply absorbed to give a reference point to help early converts to grasp what we Catholics held to be the true meaning. If co-opting an earlier feast day to help illustrate the meaning of Christ's message was useful in making the message easier to grasp and understand then I think that is a first class idea. Consider the Cathedral of Chartres in France. Early missionaries learned that a local belief held that a virgin goddess would have a son who would be a great redeamer. This belief was centered on a "sacred spring".
So, the missionaries built a church which eventually became the Cathedral over the site of the spring and told all the locals, listen up guys, your story is close but no cigar. Here is the real story ...
so the people found that it was easy to accept Jesus the Redeamer Son of the Virgin Mary. They were not celebrating an earlier pagan belief, they were explaining how the true story of Christ could be seen as the fulfillment of an earlier but flawed or incomplete belief. From the point of view of a Catholic and a man of convinced faith, anything that helps people accept the gift of salvation merited by Christ for all of us makes good sense to me.
Further to the issue of "pure" holy days, it seems to me that observance of the religious aspects of certain set-aside days does not preclude enjoyment of these days. I seriously doubt that God counts the number of minutes we spend observing such a day. I expect that He is pleased that we honor Him in a special way, not by how long we sit around doing it. I further believe that He is pleased that his children have an opportunity to rest and relax and participate in recreational activities. Giving gifts for Christmas seems like a great way to honor the birth of Christ by emulating the gifts of the Three Kings. (Yeah, whole 'nother story there). What a great time to practice charity as well. If one keeps focused on the utility of co-opting these days to help people receive the message of Christ then surely this must be seen as good and positive. To object to ways to spread the message of Christ seems to me to be the opposite of good and actually negative.
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