Your right, most holidays and beliefs which people believe or solely Christian are actually pagan. Heres something from wikipedia:
"After the conversion of
Anglo-Saxons in England from their indigenous
Anglo-Saxon polytheism (a form of
Germanic paganism) in the very early 7th century, Christmas was called
geol, which was the name of the native Germanic pre-Christian solstice festival that fell on that date. From
geol, the current English word
Yule is derived. Many customs associated with modern Christmas were derived from Germanic paganism."
Now with the argument. If you're going to take out christmas trees, lights, and the christ out of christmas, you're not celebrating christmas. and you might as well not get the holiday and go to work, and let other people do whatever they want.