Are you a Christian, by chance?  Do you believe that Jesus is actually the Son of God?  
I am not a 'Christian' except in the sense I have been raised in the Judeo Christian traditions
Yeah, I was also raised that way. Christianity, after all, has played a huge role in how Western civilization was shaped.  The Romans were Christianized, and then inevitably, the rest of the West.
Yes, Christianity also made some inroads in the East, but not nearly to the extent in Western areas
This is true.  In fact, Christianity is so engrained in our culture, that not only have festivals like Christmas and Easter been earmarked as public holidays, but our sense of time itself -- our calendar -- is measured from the date of the Jesus' birth.
It's true!  The Jewish holidays though are based on their old calendar.
The Hebrew calendar is ancient, and evolved in part from the Babylonian calendar.