> > For related reasons, I never really understood Christians who refuse to participate in Christmas or Easter because they had their origins in Pagan Festivals.
>
> Simple. He said in the Bible that He doesn't want to be worshipped the same way the pagan peoples worshipped their gods. He already said how to worship Him; who are we humans to think we know better than He?

The way Christmas is celebrated today is NOTHING like how pagans worshipped their gods eons ago.

The fact that the Christmas tree is a vestige of the day's pagan origins has no impact at all on how Christ is worshipped. Christ is worshipped as Christ is worshipped the entire rest of the year. Putting a tree in the house and decorating it is a fun thing to do, but we don't worship the tree. The pagans who worshipped their gods on Christmas eons ago did not do so in the same or even a remotely similar way that Christians today worship Christ on Christmas.

The Bible does say to avoid the "appearance" of evil, presumably for reasons that it makes a poor witness. This is avoiding things that *look* like sin but aren't, and I believe that this is the reason your cited instruction of Christ's. I can't for the life of me think of a reasonable example, so to choose an outrageous one: it would behoove a Christian not to sneak into brothels at night, even if all he's doing in there is evangelizing to the prostitutes, because this behavior is going to be a poor witness for Christ, observers not really knowing what's going on inside.

For that reason, I can see an argument for avoiding the celebration of Christmas with Christmas trees hundreds of years ago, when the presence of a tree in a home may indeed have had the implication of nature worship. But today, these implications are utterly absent. Nobody in his right mind looks into a parlor window in December, sees a decorated Christmas tree, and assumes there is nature worship going on inside. Nobody.

And even hundreds of years ago, there's no sane (non-uniquely-personal) reason the same day should not be used to celebrate Christ without the Christmas trees. There's even less reason now.

Today, Christmas is almost exclusively either Christian in nature or "neutrally" secular (by which I mean, not spiritual but not sinful either; the secular parts are either harmless fun things or -- in the case of gift-giving, peace, and good will -- actively good things). If we are to avoid recognizing Christmas because it is not pure in its origins, you might as well stop reading the Bible (because members of certain other religions ractice them by reading spiritual books), stop going to church (because members of other religions practice them by congregating together), stop praying (because members of other religions practice them by praying), and so forth.