Have you ever wondered what modern day Christmas celebrations have to do with the birth of Jesus Christ? If so, you’ve probably found yourself asking what chocolate eggs and bunnies have to do with Easter as well. To find the answer, you have look at the history of how these traditions came to be. Since tonight is the winter solstice, I find it appropriate to have a look at the origins of Christmas and its Pagan roots.

Come again? Pagan? What is that?

Paganism is a word that describes religions that are Earth-based or nature-based. Long before the current major monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, were around, people worshipped the environment around them and personified nature into Gods and Goddesses. Pagan Gods are not simply replacements for Allah or the Judeo-Christian God, they encompass everything in nature, including the people themselves.

Pagans celebrate natural cycles such as the four solar quarters, the two equinoxes, and the two solstices. The winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, was known as Yule. This was thought of as the rebirth of the Sun because afterward, the days would gradually get longer. The Sun is often a God in Pagan religions and the winter solstice was often his birthday. Sound familiar yet?

But wait, isn’t the winter solstice around December 21st? Christmas is on the 25th!

Well, I’ll get to that, but the fact is that no one knows exactly when Jesus Christ was born (or IF he was born, but that’s another topic). The Bible doesn’t state Jesus’ birthday so scholars can only guess. Even when they analyze scripture, they still don’t come up with December 25th. Some say Jesus was born in the Fall while others say he was born in the Spring. Up until the 4th century, some people celebrated Jesus’ birthday on January 6th.

Lending to the uncertainty of the exact date of the birthday of Jesus may have been early Christians keeping in line with the Jewish law of not commemorating birthdays. The celebration of birthdays was seen as a Pagan tradition.

December 25th was actually a popular day for Pagan Sun Gods to be “born.” Although the winter solstice is typically thought to be around December 21st, the first day that Pagans were able to observe the days getting longer was the 25th. Hence the “birth” of the Sun.

The Persian Sun God, Mithra, was “born” on December 25th, for example. Zoroastrianism (the Persian Pagan religion from which the story of Mithra derives) had many similarities to what we now attribute to Christianity. The story of Mithra evolved over time and eventually a cult dedicated to Mithra branched off from Zoroastrianism. Around 1st century AD, the cult of Mithra had spread throughout the Roman Empire and in 274 AD, the Roman emperor Valerian declared December 25th the birthday of Sol Invictus (aka Mithras), the “Unconquerable Sun.”

This declaration became attached to a Pagan Roman festival called Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the god of agriculture and harvest. Originally, Saturnalia was only celebrated on December 17th. The festival was very popular with the people as they put aside their work and partied extensively. In addition to the public celebrations, they held private family celebrations that were similar to the Christmas of today, with feasts, gifts, and the singing of hymns. It was a time to “be merry.” Saturnalia became so popular that the festival was eventually extended to December 24th, with the 25th being the birthday of the “Unconquerable Sun,” Mithras. To honor His birthday, gifts were exchanged on the 25th. Hmm…interesting.

Around the 4th century, as a strategic plan, Christians decided to start celebrating the birthday of Jesus. Remember, they didn’t know when Jesus was born and they hadn’t celebrated his birthday up until that point. Still, in order to entice Pagans to convert to Christianity, they needed to find a way for them to continue celebrating the holidays they enjoyed so much.

In their quest to convert as many people as possible, Christians decided to designate Jesus’ birthday, amongst other “Christian” holidays, to coincide with already existing Pagan holidays. This would make it easier for them to give their “sales pitch,” so to speak.

The Christians looked at Pagans as “the enemy within” and the Church of Rome was determined to get rid of them by any means necessary. In addition to “borrowing” Pagan holidays, they built up a negative image of Pagans and dramatically reduced the popularity of their religions. It was a shift from a polytheistic (many Gods) view to a monotheistic (one God) view.