Christmas might be a minor holy day for English speaking Christians, if a group of Puritans hadn't tried to squash it in the 17th century.
Oliver Cromwell & Co., circa 1644, banned celebration of Christmas by act of Parliament. The result, of course, was spontaneous attention on the part of the general populace to what might otherwise have fizzled out. Who knows?
The active enforcement of the Christmas ban only lasted till shortly after Cromwell's death in 1658.
The monarchy was restored, and Christmas returned. Loudly and drunkenly and accompanied by bingo, I suspect.
Of course, in 1840 Queen Victoria married a German named Albert, who had this thing about cutting down a fir tree and dragging it into the house at Christmas ("O Tannenbaum", remember?). By the time Dickens indie-published his A Christmas Carol in Prose, the first Christmas cards had been printed, and the holiday was secure.
The twelve days of Christmas need a revival. For the materialist (neo-Puritan?) populace, the holiday is pretty much done by noon on the 25th. At casa Crowndot, we like to stretch it out all the way to Twelfth Night on 5 January, the traditional eve of Epiphany.
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