How to have Christmas in D&D (and adapt other real-world celebrations) 

Great points, and I totally agree! Incorportating the magical elements of your world is a must at the very least. I found learning about the Celtic fire festivals and the wider pagan wheel of the year in my personal life gave a lot of great thought provoking context for both modern traditions and homebrew world building. The origin of Santa Claus and his sleigh is most likely Odin and the Wild Hunt!

While I don't like christmas all that much and don't include it in my games, I think you are totally right about possible sensitivity issues and about the need for a cultural background in the worldbuilding for any type of celebration. That being said, among the best christmas gifts I ever recieved was a t-shirt my Curse of Strahd group gave me last year. It has the D&D ampersand and reads "It's a scientifically validated way to cope with craziness of life" below that. I just love it. My sister who is also one of my players in another campaign already gave me a christmas calender that has a different die for every day, which is also pretty cool. I gave myself a 3d printer for chrismas that just arrived yesterday and my players will recieve Heroforge minis of their characters in the first session after christmas. So we don't include christmas in D&D, but D&D in christmas. Merry christmas to you and all your subscribers!

The Greatest DM in Portugal!