My bad, actually. Weinachten means 'Happy holly night" or something to that effect, so does Noel.
Had to go check on it. Now only to find more about the traditions themselves and where those come from... or i won't be able to sleep. OCD reflex...
Our modern term Christmas comes to us from the late Olde English cristes masse, or "Christ's mass". Christian is, of course, derived from the name of Jesus the Christ. A surprisingly recent word out of the 16th Century, the Latin term Christianus later replaced the existing English adjective christen (only to become our noun form Christendom and our infinitive to christen). The name "Christ" itself was borrowed into Olde English from the Latin Christus, as in "Christus natus est" (Christ is born). Yet this Latin term sprang directly from the Greek Khristós, which literally meant "anointed one", coming from the verb form khríen (to anoint). But this, in turn, was a direct translation of the Hebrew mashiah. Then, in due time, it was to become the source of our modern English term messiah signifying a "deliverer", in keeping with Judaic faith.
Another term referring to this holiest of seasons is Noël, as in modern French's Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas) or Nowell out of 17th Century Coventry, England, through Wales. This term shares a common ancestry with our English Nativity, along with present-day Italian's Buon Natale (Good Birth) and the Spanish nacimiento ("birth", manger scene, pesebre in Spanish or crêche in French) or Feliz Navidad (Happy Nativity). Modern German's Fröhliche Weinachten (literally "Happy Holy Night"), however, is related to the Germanic night and nocturnal, not to the Latin nativity.
The words Nativity and native are among a large family of brother and sister terms stemming from the Latin verb nasci. Meaning "to be born", it was a descendant of the Indo-European base gen- or gn- signifying "to produce". This prefix was to generate our modern English words gene, genetics, genome, generate, generative, degenerate, generic, generation, degeneration, general, generalize, generalization, progeny, progenitors, primogeniture, generous, Genesis, genius, genre, gender, biogenesis, and exogenous. From its past participle stem nat- was formed the adjectival nativus meaning "from birth", applied from the earliest of times in specific reference to the birth of Christ. Other English terms to have derived historically from this Indo-European prefix gen- or gn- , then the past participial nat- are: cognate (co-natus, born together), innate, natal, nation, nature, nascent, native, natural and Noël. To say "birth of a nation" is, lingüistically speaking, redundant. Vía the Old French, our and their term naïve, which is etymologically the equivalent of "born yesterday", ultimately derived from the Latin nativus. Also, from an Old French descendant of vulgar Latin's natalis or "of birth", have been handed down to us our present terms Renaissance (rebirth), pregnant (literally "pre-natal") and puny, implying the diminutive "nature" or size of the baby child at birth.
http://www.linguatics.com/origins_of_christmas.htm
