1.) Nomenclature
I hear that a lot of my friends are unfamiliar with some of the names of feasts used in that article. The author of the atheism.about.com article uses the old-fashioned-English popular names for them, which not everyone has heard of. Whether you commonly use them or not depends on your culture and dialect of English, not how devout you are. The full official names of feasts can be a mouthful, so in common speech it is helpful to have a shortened version. For instance, when have you ever called it "The Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ"? Perhaps never, if you are not a priest who speaks Latin. "Christmas" gets the idea across in only two syllables. The British formulation for the short names of feasts is generally "N. -mas" where N. is the (or a, or a form of the) name of the person or thing being commemorated in the liturgy that day and the -mas is a contracted form of "Mass." As far as we are concerned, only the ones popular enough to be talked of often in common speech have such a name (no one ever talks about, say, "Ceolwulfmas," although I suppose it would be perfectly valid to do so).
Thus Michaelmas is the Feast of St. Michael, Archangel (now the Feast of Sts. Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael); Childermas (less obvious) you know better as the Feast of the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28), and Candlemas (less obvious still, named because candles are blessed on that day) is the Feast of the Purification of Mary/Presentation of the Child Jesus at the Temple, which you (unfortuately) are more likely to recognize as Groundhog Day (an observance, I hear, originally cooked up to divert attention from our Lady).
Other languages have other conventions for their familar names for things. For instance, in Spanish, Christmas is "Navidad," The Nativity [of Christ]. In German it is "Weihnacht," the Holy Night. Today we retain some of the old English names but not others. For instance, "Lent" ("spring"), when most others call it by some form of "The Forty Days" (Quadrigesima) or "The Great Fast"; "Easter" ("spring" or "dawn" or "Eostare" or something) instead of a pasch- (passover) or resurrection- derivative. But not "Whitsun" for Pentecost.
Bonus points for readers who can give us common names of big feasts in other languages or English names for feasts I haven't thought of.
2.) Christmas season observance - timing
Having a Christmas party in December doesn't make you a bad Catholic, though perhaps one might hope that the cultural celebration might be as much harmonized with the liturgical one as possible. One might observe that in America there are in December two different events being observed, one of them a cultural celebration, the other a Catholic religious festival, but both of them happen to be called "Christmas" (though the one is sometimes called "Holiday" or what-have-you). The former runs from Thanksgiving to New Years; the latter runs from Dec. 25 through the Baptism of Our Lord, and in a sense up to Candlemas. The former one isn't bad, so long as you don't let it get so out of hand that it damages your devotion. It's even a nice part of our culture, except insofar as it causes unfortunate effects such as not wanting to bother with Christmas after the 28th or so, or feeling like the Church is out of synch when it's the Church's feast to begin with, or other such that you expect to hear religious people complain about.
I think ideally Christmas parties would come after Christmas Day, but I understand if cultural exigencies force you to anticipate it. For instance, a lot of people travel over their Christmas break to see family, and then you can't have your parties with your friends. I totally don't blame the CSC for having a Christmas party early in December, because you can't exactly have it during final exams, and then everyone leaves for their (really, really long, like practically until Candlemas) Christmas break.
So in my preference, the tree would go up Christmas Eve and come down sometime much later. That's more conscious of the Church's celebration but it doesn't make you some huge heretic even if you put it up in November.
Also, rainbows - totally a context thing, because that was our symbol first (remember Noah?). If you go look close at the mosaic of the big scary judgment Jesus (the one with fire coming out of His halo) in the Shrine, you'll see that he's enthroned on a rainbow. This is quite typical in old-fashioned murals and such in cathedrals, I think. So use your judgment.
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