Christmas is only at this time of the year because there was already an end-of-year pagan festival at the end of December.
When Chrisitianity was spreading the religious leaders wanted a celebrate Jesus's birth, so rather than creating a new festival they piggy-backed on the back of the already existing pagan festival and took it over.
So there was already celebration at this time of the year, before Jesus came along.
It is a load of tosh to say Jesus was born on 25th December (or any date near it).
But unfortunately Christmas (as well as every other "festival" like Easter, Halloween, Bonfire Night, Divali etc etc) has been taken over by the retail trade and they now make us all feel guilty if we are not rushing out buying presents for people, buying food and drink and so on.
In America Thanksgiving has been taken over by big business and they now have their huge "black friday" sales on the Friday which is now their biggest shopping day of the year.
Also of course, as we found out in the census last week, most people in the UK are either not religious or not Christian, so it could be argued for most people (like me) Christmas has very little to do with Jesus as I dont see he is any more important than any other person from 2,000 years ago.
I am afraid Christmas / New Year is now an excuse to spend money, eat and drink too much, and spend time with your family.
Although if you look how busy the shops are on Boxing Day, showing that many people would rather spend in the shops than stay at home with the family.