The Origin of Christmas: Part 1

Tanya Davis

Christmas is a holiday that is both celebrated and shared by people of many religions. Even some people who claim to be non-Christian will nonetheless celebrate Christmas – and why not? It’s a holiday that sucks you in; who would not want to be part of the joy, excitement, and anticipation of the season?

Christians believe that Jesus Christ was born on the date we call “Christmas.” The Bible contains a story about the birth, in which his parents, Mary and Joseph, could not find a vacant room to sleep in during their travels. So they stayed out in the barn with the animals and Mary birthed the child there, laying him in a manger. The story tells of the “angel of the Lord” who visited them and told them who their child was: “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”  You can find this story in Luke chapter 2 if you would like to read it in the Bible; you can also find it here.

Despite the religious overtones, many of the traditions that are embraced at Christmas time have little to do with Christ’s birth. In fact, the actual date we’ve chosen – December 25 – probably wasn’t really the day that Jesus was born. That date was a pagan holiday related to a sun-god worshipped by the Roman Empire. The holiday then was called Saturnalia and was celebrated by a festival that went on for the entire week proceeding December 25. The priests of Saturn carried wreaths of evergreen boughs to the Roman temples – sound familiar?

Here is why we no longer believe that Christ was born on December 25. The shepherds at that time took the sheep out to the deserts around the time of the Passover, which was in the spring, and brought them home around the time of the first rains in the fall. The sheep, in other words, had not been brought home yet (according to the biblical account of Christ’s’ birth) so chronologically there’s no way that the birth occurred in December.

Instead, the date of December 25 carried pagan significance. It was considered the birthday of the god Mithra, the Sun of Righteousness. Also the Saturnalia, which began on December 17, was a time of tawdry celebration and gift-giving. It included the role-swapping of masters and their slaves as well as feasting and revelry.

There were other wintertime festivals, like the German and Celtic Yule celebrations; these involved lighting a Yule log, eating cakes, decorating fir trees, and giving gifts. In fact, nearly every religion had some sort of winter celebration, most involving a sun-god or fire god who they worshipped in the winter in order to entice him to warm the earth for spring.

So December 25 was chosen because it was a part of a winter solstice celebration –then the date was “Christianized” in order to celebrate Christ’s birth. It probably was not until around 336 AD that the Emperor Constantine converted the holiday into a “Christian” holiday which we now call Christmas. The wreaths, evergreens, and Yule logs were all carryovers from Pagan celebrations that were embraced as part of the new, Christian holiday tradition.
What about Santa?