A holiday by any other name...

There has been a lot of noise made lately about the word Christmas. No longer do government institutions put up 'Christmas Trees' they put up 'Holiday Trees,' and this trend goes with more than just trees. This has been circling around in my head this week because in my office we seem to be of very different minds. One person wants it to be all Christmas all the time and has wanted it that way since Halloween. Another who is all for getting rid of any religious affiliations with anything, including Christmas. I figure if you want to celebrate Christmas, call it a Christmas Tree, if you don't don't.
In my opinion, many of the people making a big fuss about 'Holiday Trees' or 'Holiday cards/cookies/parties,' are most likely not all that religious and use Christmas as the materialistic occasion that it has become. These people forget the other holidays celebrated during the same time frame, Kwanza, Chanukah etc, and I would bet that many of them don't go to church, to think about the 'real significance' of Christmas.
Christmas is the name of a holiday, yes it is a name with a religious reference in it, but for most people, Christmas has very little to do with Christ anymore. Christian holidays have taken over society enough, so why not let people have the all encompassing 'holidays?' I figure call it whatever you want, it's just a name and doesn't change any meaning or significance to the occasion, whatever specific holiday you're celebratig.
As for Rideau Hall's 'Holiday Tree,' my take on that is that governments need to piss off as few people as possible with this kind of stuff because they use them as brownie points when they screw up the big stuff.
The real issue is, why am I even writing about Christmas before December?