Well, Christmas was not any kind of parable that Jesus is said to have told. It is a holiday (holy day) established by what became the mainstream version of what's known as Judeo-Christianity. So for meaning, we would have to guess at their intent. What's known is they had several holy days during the year, just as the Judeos had in their religious customs. Each holy day is potentially profitable for the establishment as traffic generally increases to the designated sanctuaries. The birth of Jesus is vague, in terms of meaning. Perhaps that is the most profitable model; for holy days to be vague. You'll need to show up at the designated sanctuary and have a priest tell you the meaning. Probably they won't say it was established to upstage a holy day for Mithra, described here with " Mithra may signify any kind of interpersonal communication and whatever establishes good relations between people." Sounds a lot like how Christmas is used by families, how they gather together, and how people generally try to be nicer to each other. Anyway, the birth of Jesus, imo, was historical, but even so, is at best a parable with potential meaning. This is because birth alone is technically meaningless. As with any parable, it requires an interpretation, which will either be right...or further misleads. Long ago i proposed my own interpretation as follows. First note, Christmas is three days following the shortest, darkest day of the year, at least where the holy day was established...that is, three days after the winter solstice. If you interpret the cycle of each year as going from enlightenment to endarkenment and back to enlightenment, then June 21 can be interpreted as the most enlightened point in the cycle. If you then interpret the yearly cycle on a macro scale signifying all of time from beginning to end, you could say that Jesus was born not long after the darkest days of all history, when the story of history begins to move the needle back to enlightenment. Arguably, Jesus may have moved the needle, or otherwise tipped the scales toward a return to enlightenment by the advancement of his experience and attempts to convey (teach) it. On the other hand, it may have been Gautama Buddha who tipped the scale of progress back to enlightenment, to be followed by Jesus who took it a step further, not long afterwards. Or any of several luminaries who preceded Jesus, including Jesus and/or Gautama in prior incarnation cycles. Arguably, Jesus appeared in the darkest zip code in the world, a place completely over run by faith. Could even argue that his arrival there, at that time, was intentional. The macro cycle, that is, the whole history of all time (from alpha to omega) is the story of the death and resurrection of Christ. That is, the beginning of time is the death of Christ, and the end of time is the resurrection of Christ from within the tomb of time. Thus, the birth of Jesus, or any birth (beginning) at all, signifies the death of Christ. The teachings of Jesus, backed by miracles, signifies the return of knowledge to an endarkened mind. The endarkened mind is the theoretical mind of Christ, plunged into an experience of faith, where it is believed that the Self (Christ) is something else, someone else, and even many different selves (mankind). As many different selves, mankind is plunged into darkness, believing themselves to be real, having no knowledge of the True Self which is Christ, and, Reality itSelf. As the first "man" to identify as Christ, Jesus signifies the beginning of a waking cycle, ending in full enlightenment for the masses, or better said, for the entire mind (of Christ) which has been distracted by fancies of faith, faith being the actual darkness. The shortest time of year signifies a time when the mind of Christ contained the most faith, and the least knowledge of all time. If you light a candle in the darkness, then, this is the meaning you can give to it. Jesus functioned as a candle in the dark, lit at a very dark time, arguable the darkest time of all. The light is knowledge. The dark is faith. More candles will by lighted. The more the merrier. But there may still be a lot of time left before enlightenment (knowledge) penetrates every where there was darkness (faith). Light more candles to signify in which direction you wish to make progress. Darkness = death. Light = life.
" The meaning of Christmas" This is going to come up eventually, so might as well get it out of the way now...