@roxy54, thanks but I'm a very good actor and everyone in my family thinks I'm fine with Christmas.
All of this originated when we were cowering in caves and realized at some point that winter wouldn't go on forever, so I get that endings/beginnings jazz and it's great for what it is. I am talking about what bothered Chuck and Linus back in '65, and it certainly hasn't gotten better since then.
I agree with you 100% - enjoying my friends and family is a wonderful thing, and I do. Other than my desire to avoid the whole tree thing, I don't grumble or grouse about it openly and genuinely celebrate the fact that we're all together. I do the same thing on Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Arbor Day, and every Friday fish fry. The beauty of all the other holidays I mentioned is there is none of the insane level of consumerism (and the attendant waste) that Christmas brings. Well, possibly Thanksgiving, but that holiday has a full plate (pun intended) of other issues as well.
I was in the middle of an extended paragraph that laid out what I believed was a cogent argument about this particular holiday, but I am cool with leaving it at "I love any occasion that encourages time with friends and family"
Or, to return to the words of St.Linus: "peace on earth, good will toward men".