Christmas Belongs to Everyone (or a Little History Lesson for Christians)

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Now that the holiday season is upon us, I've begun seeing those ever so ubiquitous "Keep Christ in Christmas" bumper-stickers.  I don't mind in the least being told to keep Jesus Christ in Xmas as long as we understand how he got there in the first place.  

Christians Borrowed Xmas from Pagan Roman Celebration

Where is Christmas mentioned in the Bible?  It isn't because early Christians borrowed the holiday from the Roman's pagan celebration of Saturnalia, the god of agriculture and harvest.   Failing to stamp out paganism, 4th century Roman Church leaders decided (without any evidence whatsoever) that the birthday of Jesus Christ coincided with the week-long pagan feast of Saturnalia.

Winter festivals celebrated on the day of the year in which the sun was at its lowest point in the sky, have been common throughout the world.  While the gift-giving and merrymaking traditions of modern Christmas came from Saturnalia, the lights and donations to charity were borrowed from the Roman New Year. The evergreens used in decorations for the holiday came from an ancient English tradition, where priests of the woods called Druids used holly and mistletoe during their holiday of the winter solstice to symbolize eternal life and evergreen branches to ward off evil spirits.


The Christmas tree and yule logs were plucked from pagan Germanic feasts.  The word "yule" came from a pre-Christian Scandinavian holiday of the same name, which took place in late December or early January.

Christmas is the one true ecumenical holiday on our modern calendar.