Whoa -- that's a cool tradition. They should bring it over to the U.S. The typical American Christmas presents a weird dilemma for secular leftists: On one hand there's the desire not to celebrate a Christian holiday, but then the commercial, secular version is arguably way worse. It seems like the solution for those of us who retain a sentimental attachment to Christmas is to embrace those aspects of it that are left over from Yule and Saturnalia and recover the best of the pagan traditions that have been suppressed.
IIRC the point of the ancient holidays and festivals around the Winter Solstice was to celebrate the fact that days were going to start getting longer; that the sun -- the source of all life -- was returning to prominence. Nothing wrong with having a holiday for that.
-WD