You cannot take pagan practices and "redeem" them for Yahuah. He says do not even ask how the pagans worship.
There is no biblical command to celebrate the birth of the Messiah. Not one verse. No date is given anywhere in Scripture. The apostles never celebrated it. The early assembly never celebrated it. It does not appear in church history until the fourth century -- centuries after the apostles were dead.
Luke 2:8 tells us shepherds were in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. In Israel, shepherds bring their flocks in from the fields by mid-October because of the cold rainy season. A December birth is meteorologically impossible in the Judean hills.
"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night." Luke 2:8
So where does December 25 come from?
Every symbol associated with Christmas is pagan in origin:
"Hear ye the word which Yahuah speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith Yahuah, Learn not the way of the heathen... 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 10:1-4
The question is not "Can I worship Yahuah on December 25?" The question is: "Did Yahuah command it, or did the pagans originate it?" The answer determines everything.
The word "Easter" does not come from the resurrection. It comes from the ancient fertility goddess known by many names across civilizations:
The symbols tell the story. Eggs are ancient fertility symbols associated with Ishtar's mythological descent. Rabbits are symbols of sexual fertility. These have nothing to do with the resurrection of the Messiah. Nothing.
In Acts 12:4, the King James Version translates the Greek word "Pascha" as "Easter." This is the ONLY occurrence in any English Bible, and it is a mistranslation. Every other translation correctly renders "Pascha" as "Passover." The Greek word is the same one used throughout the New Testament for Passover -- it has no connection to Easter.
"And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter [Greek: Pascha = Passover] to bring him forth to the people." Acts 12:4 KJV (mistranslation)
Yahusha did not institute Easter. He kept Passover. At the Last Supper, which WAS the Passover meal, He said:
"And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me." Luke 22:19
"Do THIS" -- Passover. Not Easter. Not sunrise services. Not egg hunts. Passover. Rome changed it. The Council of Nicaea (325 AD) officially separated the resurrection celebration from the biblical Passover and tied it to the spring equinox and the pagan fertility calendar.
Most believers assume the "sin of Jeroboam" was idol worship in the sense of rejecting Yahuah entirely. It was not. This is what makes it so dangerous and so relevant.
"Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy elohim, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan." 1 Kings 12:28-29
Notice carefully: Jeroboam did NOT say "worship other deities." He said "behold thy elohim... which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." He was claiming to worship the SAME Elohim -- the one who delivered Israel from Egypt. He simply changed the METHOD of worship.
"And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart." 1 Kings 12:32-33
The phrase is devastating: "the month which he had devised of his own heart."
He did NOT reject Yahuah. He worshipped Yahuah in unauthorized ways. Modern Christianity does exactly the same thing. The worship is directed at the Creator, but the methods, days, and practices come from paganism.
This sin was so severe that every subsequent king of Israel was judged by it. The phrase "he walked in the way of Jeroboam" and "the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin" appears over twenty times in 1 and 2 Kings. It was the defining sin that led to the northern kingdom's destruction and exile.
This passage is the definitive answer to the question "Can I use pagan practices to worship Yahuah?"
"Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their elohim, saying, How did these nations serve their elohim? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto Yahuah thy Elohim: for every abomination to Yahuah, which he hateth, have they done unto their elohim." Deuteronomy 12:30-31
Yahuah does not simply say "do not worship other deities." He says do not even ASK how the pagans worship so that you might do the same for Him. The command is absolute: "Thou shalt NOT do so unto Yahuah thy Elohim."
You cannot take a pagan practice -- a pagan date, a pagan symbol, a pagan ritual -- and "redeem" it for Yahuah. He explicitly forbids it. The practice is an abomination regardless of who you direct it toward.
The common defense is "But I'm doing it for the Messiah." That is precisely what Jeroboam said about the golden calves. "Behold thy elohim, O Israel, which brought thee up out of Egypt." He was sincere. He was sincere AND disobedient. Sincerity does not override Scripture.
Yahuah gave His people specific appointed times -- the Moedim (Leviticus 23). These are HIS feasts, not "Jewish feasts." They are prophetic, they point to the Messiah, and they were never cancelled. The question every believer must answer is this: Will I keep the feasts Yahuah commanded, or the feasts that pagans originated and Rome adopted?