The "true" meaning of Christmas

Everyone hears this during the holiday season, in songs and spoken word, newspaper articles, everywhere: "the TRUE meaning of Christmas is (family/giving/Jesus/wassail/snow/etc)" but I'm curious to know what Christmas really means to everyone here. And of course if you don't celebrate Christmas, feel free to share your thoughts on whatever holiday(s) you celebrate around this time of year.
Also, share what this day would ideally be like for you, under the given meaning.

Example: To me, Christmas has always been very stressful. It lost its magic right around when I was about 11 or 12 years old, and has sort of become a drudgery ever since then. Must buy gifts, must go caroling in the freezing cold, must make time for people you don't wanna make time for, etc. I've always enjoyed giving to others, but not when I feel it's required. I still enjoy picking out gifts for people, don't get me wrong, but it's still a chore. I no longer even vaguely wonder what I'm going to receive for Christmas. Clearly both the giving and the getting has little importance to me anymore.
However, since moving away from home a couple of years ago, and seeing my family only rarely, the holiday season has become centered around family. Friends too, since they're the family you choose, but mostly just ... family.

This took on ideal form last Christmas. I'd helped my parents with some of the gift-buying and stocking-stuffing, since my family's always been fairly tight on money, and Christmas at my house usually involved a highly-decorated tree with very few presents beneath it. Just deciding on the spur-of-the-moment that I would spend the night there at the house, I stayed up with them until about 3 or 4 AM wrapping the last of the presents that would seem to the little kids like Santa brought them in the middle of the night, then went to bed, and awoke a couple of hours later before any of the kids. Then I just sat and watched them all getting extremely excited over the contents of their stockings, sharing their excitement with the other kids, and directing groggy but excited and enchanted grins at my parents. For the first time in 8 years, I felt BONDED to my family. It was a good feeling. And it embodied everything positive I had ever felt about Christmas.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by lia

be good to your retail slaves. It ruins their day when you're rude and demanding. No one in retail is getting paid enough to put up with your shit.

Again you say something the general public could have used a long time ago. I see similar things being passed around on the internet aimed more towards waitresses and waiters and not giving them so much crap, but this is really the first time I've seen anyone flat-out say "Be nice to the drones, they're trying to do their jobs!" It's kind of nice, even though I'm not in retail this year, I have been in years past, and I was pretty miserable through most of the holidays.

Which, now that I think about it, is probably why I don't have much attachment to giving or receiving gifts.

There's nowhere I can't reach.