The History of December 25th as Christmas

By Rick Crigger

   Throughout the centuries Christmas has taken some twists and turns before this holiday became the birth of Jesus Christ and other festivities. The Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia (which was in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture) this was a weeklong period of lawlessness that ran from December 17 to 25. During this period you could do anything you wanted without any consequences for your actions.   Within this celebration the emperors of Rome would oblige their most despised people to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia. Later, this custom expanded to include gift giving among the general community. Also Going house-to-house singing and eating human shaped biscuits, that would later be know as Giner Bread Cookies.

In pre-Christian time, plants and trees that remained green all year round had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the Christmas season with pine and spruce, ancient people hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away ghosts, evil spirits, witches and illness. In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people such as Romans, Egyptians and Vikings thought the sun was a god. They believed the reason we have winter is the sun god would become weak and sick, many people feared the sun would not return. By celebrating solstice the sun god would get well again. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return. Each group called the sun god by a different name, the Romans was Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun; the Egyptians worshipped Ra and the Vikings Balder. I find this interesting the fact that three different cultures worship the same sun but by different names.

   In the early part of the forth century Christians of Romans began to celebrate the birth of Christ. There were some problems during this period, the early Catholic Church leaders wanted to include pagan rituals into Christianity. To a degree the Christian leaders succeeded in telling the people that they could celebrate Saturnalia (a pagan holiday) as Christmas. The problem with this is Saturnalia has nothing to do with Christianity. So to cure this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday. They also incorporated the Asheira cult, which worshipped trees in the forest and brought them into their homes. Sound familiar? I guess we would call it the Christmas tree today. But the real Christians were not fooled by this. They knew it was an abomination to honor the pagan god. Over time this celebration of Saturnalia would be tamed and made into a celebration fit for the Christian Son of God. Nobody knows the exact day Christ was born but traditions says that it has been celebrated since the year 98 AD. The Bishop of Rome ordered the birthday of the Christ Child celebrated as a solemn feast in 137 AD. Furthermore Julius I, another Bishop of Rome chose December 25th as the observance of Christmas in 350 AD.