Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.  For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.”   Jeremiah 10:2-4 

The word heathen means Gentile.  It was 300 years after Christ before the Roman church kept Christmas, and not until the fifth century that it was mandated to be kept throughout the empire as an official festival honoring “Christ.”  However, it is not Christ that is being honored through this tradition, but Paul, upon whose teachings the Roman church was built, which is why Paul is called Apostle to the Gentiles.