Going forward, I will drastically reduce my gambling during festive periods because I have tried for several years and it never works.
Gambling is a form of entertainment. If you go to the beach during the holidays, travel to a country for tourism, or spend time with your family and watch TV, watch movies, talk, dance. All of these things are forms of entertainment too. So there is no problem with people gambling during the holidays, as long as they always play in moderation.
It's a personal preference, and perfectly understandable if someone wants to spend it as just another day of having fun. Some others want to be radically different to mark the event. For me christmas is mostly traditions, lots of offline and quiet time to gather my thoughts. It's spending time with my family and watching die hard and die hard 2.
People celebrate Christmas in different ways, because they have different traditions. Some of them celebrate Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia, Bodhi Day, and there are some others as well. Some people don't celebrate anything and it's fine.
Fun side fact: Reasons for people celebrating Christmas in 24-25. of 12th month, is that Christians basically took the time when others were celebrating anyway and decided that it was the day for them. There's no mention in the bible of that Jesus was even born in 12th month. It was probably just convenient time to change the focus of the party.