I am Germanic Pagan/Heathen, and appreciate that you made this information available for non-pagans especially Christians. Christians often ask me why I would celebrate the giving of gifts on the holiday. I have tried explain to them that it was an older tradition, appropriated by Chtistians like Easter, which was originally Eostre.
And it's even written in their scriptures to not do christmas in Jeremiah 10:1-5, yet they still do it. Have you read this? Jeremiah 10:1-5 1 Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: 2 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
@@michaelfollowsyah I have so much respect for pagans who know this more than the so-called Christians They don't even know/believe what they THINK they know/believe.
Thank you so much for giving such an excellent informative history on the true origins of Christmas. You are one of the few people that seems to know how the Christmas celebrations truly started.
Pagan festivals was happening probably 1000 years or more before Christianity and the Christian Church morphed a lot of the pagan practices to fit the their narrative. I’m 54 years old and just realised that Jesus wasn’t born at Christmas and learnt the Church took a pagan festival starting 21st December and picked the 25th December as Christmas! To say I’m so miffed and stunned by this is an understatement. So it turns out I’m more Pagan than Christian, I feel my identity has been completely changed. There is a better and more in-depth video than this but this is a good one. Since a child I’ve always believed in the Christmas Tree and lights - I see why now!
HaSatan has deceived the whole world. Your parents lied; their parents lied; their parents lied, et cetera until you get to someone in your family tree that knowingly committed open rebellion against *AHAYAH ASHAR AHAYAH* (Hebrew for I AM THAT I AM). It happened to me. You have one of two choices to make: Serve The Most High as HE has declared to do it. Or commit the same spiritual fornication as our ancestors. I empathize and sympathize with you. I hope you can resist the temptation and make the right choice.
PART 3 - Let’s quickly look at two more things with alleged pagan roots - the yule log and mistletoe (as well as other green plants like holly and ivy). Yule, for the ancient Germanic people, typically referred to the Winter Solstice and celebrations were held around that time. Yule was subsequently placed on 25 December by King Haakon the Good in the 10th century AD to coincide with Christmas. This goes back to the early historian Snorri Sturluson, and his book "Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway." Snorri says before this, “Yule was celebrated on a midwinter night (the Winter Solstice), and for a duration of three nights". He gives no specific dates, but St. Bede in “The reckoning of Time,” opined the Northmen calculated their seasons according to the cycles of the moon, so the date of Yule probably changed every year to align with the Winter Solstice. Pliny the elder also says the Gallic tribes calculated their months according to the moon. Last, according to the Chronicler, Theitmar, the Danes sacrificed to pagan gods in January after the 6th. So, Yule kind of gets moved around. One thing associated with pagan Yule is of course the Yule Log. Yule Logs however do not go back to paganism, despite the name. Yule is also an English word to mean "mid-winter period." The first mention of yule logs is in Robert Herrick’s, "Hesperides” a poetry collection, and he calls it a Christmas log. It wasn't called a yule log until Aubrey's work “In the West-Riding of Yorkshire on Christmas Eve” which dates to 1686. So, the Yule Log is really a more recent concept and has zero connections back to some pagan antecedent. Many people associate mistletoe, ivy and holly with the ancient Celts as all three plants were held as sacred in Druidism. Thus, they opine, their inclusion in Christmas is pagan and this is proffered as just one more reason not to celebrate Christmas due to its pagan origins. Again, historical similarity does not equate to historical sameness. The first mention of mistletoe in connection with Christmas goes back to only the 1600’s. The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe comes even later, the end of the 1700’s. Again, no ties to an ancient pagan past. Most people have heard the story about how the ancient Germanic people brought evergreen trees into their houses around Winter Solstice (Germanic ‘Yule’) and typically hung them upside down from rafters. It leaves us with images of a Viking long house bedecked with several trees hanging from the rafters while those gathered inside made merry with fire, feasting and mead. Except that never happened. There is no historical evidence from any of the eddas or sagas or any writings, that offer a shred of historical evidence to support the idea that pagan Germanic peoples brought evergreen trees into their homes at Yule. There was no borrowing of this Germanic custom from the Romans who borrowed it from blah, blah, blah, who borrowed it from blah, blah, blah. This custom has absolutely zero ties to any supposed Biblical reference. The origins of Christmas trees are rooted in present-day Germany and date to the 16th century. The first mention of Christmas trees is in an Alsace ordinance in 1561. Almost no early Germanic pagans thought pine trees were sacred, let alone associated with Christmas. Germanic tribes believed the oak was sacred, not the evergreen tree. The Christmas tree morphed over from so-called paradise trees. There were many allegorical-type plays done in the Middle Ages at various markets. One such play was called the Paradise Play, performed to celebrate the feast day of Adam and Eve, which fell on Christmas Eve. In the dead of winter, not a lot of trees are available, so the “tree of knowledge” was represented by an evergreen fir with apples tied to its branches. There is documentation of trees decorated with wool thread, straw, apples, nuts and pretzels. After the play, the treats would be eaten. The practice likely gave way to having trees in the house at Christmas. In 1419 for example, a guild in Freiburg put up a tree decorated with apples, flour-paste wafers, tinsel and gingerbread. The Christmas tree is not historically attested any earlier than this time period. Again, historical similarity does not equate to historical sameness.
PART 4 - Odin and Santa It is often claimed that Óðinn/Odin was believed by the Norse to bring presents for children at Jól/Yule, but no one seems to be able to cite a single source of historical evidence to support this claim. The reason being is that there is none. Óðinn is primarily associated with Jól through his epithet Jólnir, which means “the Yuler” or “the One Who Yules.” This epithet is attested in the very old skaldic poem Háleygjatal, composed in the late tenth century CE by the skaldic poet Eyvindr Skáldaspillir. There are over eighty different names for Óðinn attested in the surviving Old Norse sources and Jólnir is merely one of these many names. Additionally, although the epithet Jólnir certainly indicates that Óðinn was associated with the holiday of Jól in some way, it does not explain the nature of this association. It certainly does not even remotely suggest in any way that any Norse person during the Middle Ages ever thought that Óðinn might have brought people presents at Jól. Many Old Norse sources, including the Saga of Hákon the Good, written by the Icelandic antiquarian Snorri Sturluson (lived 1179 - 1241), suggest that Jól was a time when people drank toasts to various deities. Many historians speculate that Óðinn may have simply been the main deity to whom people drank toasts at Jól and that this may be the reason for his association with the holiday. This bit of misinformation seems to have originated as a backformation based on the pre-existing assumption that Santa Claus has been influenced by Óðinn. Since Santa Claus is said to bring presents to children at Christmas today and people already assumed Santa has been influenced by Óðinn, they seem to have concluded that Óðinn must have brought presents in midwinter as well, despite there being zero historical evidence attesting this. The name “Santa” is simply a corruption of the Dutch “Sinter” (Saint) - nothing more, nothing less. “Clause” a corruption of the Dutch “Klaas” - a common nickname for Nicholas. Dutch Sinter Klaas, was brought to the US by the Dutch who settled in what they called New Holland (i.e. New York) and was subsequently Anglicized to “Santa Claus”. St. Nicholas was, of course, real person. He was a bishop in Myra, in what is now Turkey. His feast day is celebrated on 6 December. It is on that date that children in Europe would receive treats and gifts. His association was later moved to 25 December to help make Christmas a family holiday. Newspapers promoted it and encouraged to give gifts on Christmas instead of St. Nicholas Day or New Years like it traditionally was. Sinterklaas was rebranded from a bishop to look like a traditional dutchman from around the 1800’s. Then, of course, commercialism got to him and he’s morphed into the character he is today. As a quick aside, another name one frequently hears is “Father Christmas”. He, surprisingly, pre-dates the modern Santa Claus, but he is not some pagan deity. Instead, he was a Medieval personification of Christmas. Richard Smart of Plymtree is the first to write about him, referring to him as Sir Christmas. It seems his main task is to announce the birth of Christ. Feasting and merrymaking at holidays is hardly the sole realm of paganism, so I won’t even touch that one. Christmas Carols themselves are quite ancient - some of the first ones can be traced to 4th century Rome - these were all sung in Latin and developed from hymns. Secular carols first started appearing around the 1400’s - the custom of singing them going door to door comes from English wassailing (Wassail is from the Anglo-Saxon “wês hâl - be (thou) healthy! (hâl is modern English “hale”)). A custom of going around wishing everyone health for the new year - typically in exchange for a cup of waissail - a mulled alcoholic punch (think German Glühwein or Scandinavian glög). Though mentioned in Beowulf and in the Anglo-Saxon account of the Battle of Hastings, it doesn’t necessarily equate to a “pagan” custom, at least not a religious one - you’re just toasting someone wishing them good health; not sure I necessarily see that as inherently “pagan”. Kind of pushes the envelope. And yes, every tradition, including pagan traditions, have some form of song-singing associated with them. Yet again, historical and cultural similarity does not equate with sameness. This same sentiment also applies to lights at Christmas - they have a very different meaning and symbolism than the pagan traditions, so to suggest they have some sort of pagan antecedent does not stand to reason. I’m sure I’ve left out other things as well, but the thing to note is that when we celebrate Christmas (and other holidays as well), we are definitely participating in a tradition with deep historical roots. But those roots are firmly situated in an early and medieval Christian past, not an ancient pagan one.
this video was such a delightful watch, really loved the insights! but honestly, i can't help but wonder if we're just romanticizing these traditions more than they deserve. some of them have pretty dark origins, yet they’re celebrated so brightly today. what's your take on that?
It’s crazy how the entire birth sequence of Christ revolves around astronomical events & specific stars and constellations; yet the vast majority of people have no idea 3 wise men= the belt stars of Orion, The Three Kings Star in the East = Sirius Dec 21st the sun “dies” & doesn’t move for 3/4days until Dec 24/25th when it rises one degree signaling that warmer days will come….etc etc Merry Christmas tho! Lol PS: the first bishops & cardinals of the Catholic Church were former PAGAN high priests…all they did was change the color & style of their robes lol
December 20/21 night is the longest night of the year, the last night of autumn (Azar 30) and the beginning of winter (Dey 1) (according to Persian solar calendar) and is believed that Mithra, the God/lord of light (fire) was born on this night which has roots in the Mithraism believes (an 8000 years old religion originated in Iran). Later on Mithraism was adopted by Europeans and was the main religion of Roman or Greece empires of 500 years. So these Mithraism celebrations also was transferred to their traditions and symbol such is fire, pine tree, … became the symbol of winter solstice and then Christmas.
PART 1 - The idea that Christmas is pagan actually comes from die-hard Protestant fundamentalists in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In those centuries, many Protestants regarded holidays like Christmas and Easter as “popery” and therefore sought to discredit them by linking them with ancient paganism. The idea that Christmas might be pagan was advanced as early as 1648 in the work Certain Queries Touching the Rise and Observation of Christmas, written by the Puritan Joseph Heming. Later fundamentalist writers really took the idea and ran with it. For a serious researcher, perhaps the most difficult aspect of researching various origins, traditions, and assumed ‘truths’ about holidays, is sifting through all the data and separating what is historical _fact_ from the myth, legend, and, even, religious propaganda by some denominations of what is historical _fiction._ It’s not an easy task. Indeed, what makes this even more difficult, is that so many of these ‘’facts”, suppositions, and assumptions are so ill-researched and have been repeated for so long, that they have essentially become accepted as truth. One can find these asserted ‘facts’ in everything ranging from various educational websites to entries in dictionaries and encyclopedias, and even in (some) scholarly articles which, I think, only makes researching the actual origins quite difficult. People are just repeating what they’ve been told and assume to be true without question. What we find after close examination and scrutiny however, is that the accepted origins and traditions of holidays come from the latter (historical fiction), rather than the former (historical fact). Let’s tackle the date first. Many are keen to assert that the December 25th date was chosen because it is so close to the Winter Solstice, a date known to have various pagan celebrations.
The date of December 25th for the birth of Jesus has nothing to do with anything pagan, it is a straightforward deduction from Scripture, analyzed in conjunction with historical knowledge about those who worked in the temple. To briefly summarize: The priestly course of Abias (the course of Saint Zacharias) was undoubtedly serving during the second week of the Jewish month of Tishri-the very week of the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of Tishri. In our calendar, the Day of Atonement would land anywhere from September 22 to October 8. Zacharias and Elizabeth conceived John the Baptist immediately after Zacharias served his course. This entails that Saint John the Baptist would have been conceived somewhere around the end of September, placing John’s birth at the end of June, confirming the early church’s celebration of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on June 24. The rest of the dating is rather simple. We read that just after the Virgin Mary conceived Christ, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was six months pregnant with John the Baptist. This means that John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus. If you add six months to June 24 you get December 24-25 as the birthday of Jesus. Then, if you subtract nine months from December 25 you get that the Annunciation was March 25. So, as can be seen, the date was derived from considerations having nothing whatsoever to do with Roman festivals or any other December-related cultural or non-Christian religious activities. Granted, modern scholarship has demonstrated that the birth of Jesus actually occurred more likely in either the Spring, at some point in early April, or in the fall, at some point in late September, but for people living almost 2,000 years ago however, they used what data they had, and none of it came from pre-Christian or pagan sources. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope St. Telesphorus (125-136) instituted the tradition of celebrating midnight Mass, which means Christmas was already being celebrated. St. Theophilus (AD 115-181), bishop of Caesarea, stated, “We ought to celebrate the birthday of Our Lord on what day soever the 25th of December shall happen.” [Magdeburgenses, de orign Festorum Chirstianorum]. In short, Christmas was already being celebrated by Christians by the early 2nd century AD. To be completely fair, the first historically recorded instance of Christmas being celebrated dates to 336 AD as a note on an old list of Roman bishops written in 354 AD, which suggests that it was already a known celebration. The predominant pagan celebrations that are usually targeted as the culprit of Christmas’ origins are Saturnalia, Mithris, and Sol Invictus. Let’s look at these. Saturnalia - First, the Winter Solstice had no festive significance to ancient Romans. There were no celebrations planned for the date and they disagreed on when it was. The Julian Calendar does say 12/25, but Pliny the Elder says 12/26 (nat. his. 18.59.221), and Columella says 12/23 (De Re Rustica 9.14.12). Saturnalia was a Roman festival of Saturn and was never on December 25th. Macrobius says Saturnalia began 14 days before January, which comes out to December 17th, using Roman Calendrical dates. He says it lasted for 3 days, but according to the Fasti inscriptions, it lasted to around the 23rd during the days of the Republic. In short, the official dates for how long Saturnalia was supposed to last varied depending on which time period a person happened to live in, and which emperor happened to be in power at the time. Nonetheless, throughout the entire period of the Roman Republic (lasted c. 509 - c. 27 BCE) and the Principate (lasted c. 27 BCE - c. 284 CE), by the time December 25th rolled around, Saturnalia was definitely already over. Throughout this entire period of Roman history, there is not a single mention of anyone ever celebrating Saturnalia on December 25th or even thinking that other people celebrated it on December 25th. The celebration itself may originally have been a farming festival; the evidence is unclear. It was associated with an overturning of various regulations and social norms: free citizens often wore a freedman’s hat, the pilleus, and played gambling games that were normally illegal; slaves would dine alongside their masters, or even act the part of master. People would exchange gifts of candles and clay figurines. There’s absolutely no link to Christmas. The date? No, they’re not on the same date. . . . The fact that Saturnalia _might_ have had some influence on Christmas isn’t evidence that it did. Historical similarity does not equate to historical sameness. The modern custom of gift-giving at Christmas does not tie back to pagan Saturnalia. It dates back to the 16th century. That is when Luther introduced the Christkind in an attempt to discourage veneration of St Nicholas, who was associated with gift-giving on his feast day of 6 December. In late mediaeval Germany gift-giving had also been associated with the feast of the Holy Innocents, on 28 December. It’s possible that Christmas charity from aristocrats to the poor goes back a bit further. But there’s certainly no evidence to suggest continuity all the way back to when Saturnalia was still being celebrated.
PART 2 - Mithraism - The Roman cult of Mithras seems to have begun in Rome and spread out mainly via the Roman military and merchants, with particular clusters of activity, judging from the archaeology, along the Danubian frontier. Mithra was a Persian deity brought over from Zoroastrianism. Despite its outward pretensions to Persian origins and antiquity, the Roman cult of Mithras seems to have had a uniquely Roman iconography, theology and ritual, acting as an exclusive, male-only and secretive religious club. The idea that there are many remarkable parallels between Mithraism and Christianity and that the latter is therefore derived, at least in part, from the former maintains its imaginative hold on those who don’t bother checking these things. Unfortunately, despite their regular repetition, virtually none of these parallels stand up to critical scrutiny. The claim that Mithras was “born of a virgin”, for example, seems to have no basis in any of the evidence for the Roman god. After the tauroctony, the most common image of Mithras does indeed depict his birth. Unfortunately, no “virgin” is involved and the parallels with the stories of the birth of Jesus are nowhere to be found. This is because the Roman god was thought to have been born, fully formed and entirely adult, from a rock - the so-called petra genetrix But the element of the myths around Mithras and Christmas that is repeated most often is the claim that Mithraists celebrated the god’s birthday on December 25th and that this is the reason we celebrate Christmas on this date. The claim that Mithra has “many stories associated with him” is nonsense, given that we have no “stories” about the Roman god at all. That aside, the claim that December 25th was a festival of the birth of Mithras is garbage. Mithraic scholar Roger Beck calls the idea that Mithras’ birth was associated with December 25th “the hoariest of ‘facts’” but it keeps getting repeated despite it having no foundation.
It arose out of a confusion between a feast of the birth of the “Unconquered Sun” - Sol Invictus - on that date and the fact that Mithras Sol Invictus is one of the titles of Mithras found in Mithraic inscriptions. So, some have conflated the two and decided that “Sol Invictus” always refers to Mithras and so December 25th was the date of the festival of his birth. Saturnalia - Another candidate for a pagan Roman festival that Christmas supposedly appropriated or incorporated or supplanted is Sol Invictus, which at least fell on December 25th. But the earliest date provided by historical evidence, for the Roman celebration is 274 AD, when it was instituted by the Roman emperor Aurelian. But the December 25th date for this festival did not begin in 274. It came eighty years later: There is no evidence that Aurelian instituted a celebration of Sol on December 25. As mentioned, a feast day for Sol on December 25th is not mentioned until eighty years later, in the Calendar of 354 AD and, subsequently, in 362 AD by Julian in his Oration to King Helios. In short, while the winter solstice on or around the 25 December was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas, and none that indicates that Aurelian had a hand in its institution. Upon examination, the notion that the cult of Sol in late antiquity represented a new pagan religion that potentially threatened to thwart Christianity, is not supported by any clear evidence. After reviewing the evidence of a December 25th date in the pagan Roman calendar, Dr. Steven E. Hijmans, Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Alberta, Canada, concludes: None of this tells us when the natalis invicti of December 25 entered the Roman calendar, but on this evidence, we must acknowledge that it is a real possibility that it did not do so until after the bishop of Rome first celebrated Christmas on that day. The beginning of the observance of Sol Invictus on December 25th, started anywhere from 70-220 years after Christians were celebrating Christmas on that date. So, the myth of Christmas coming from Sol Invictus can be safely laid to rest. The earliest attested date for the celebration of Sol Invictus is 274 AD, but it wasn't originally celebrated on December 25th. There is evidence to suggest Sol Invictus was originally observed as early as August or October and was only later changed to December 25th as a possible way for the Romans to counter Christians celebrating/observing Christmas, not the other way around. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope St. Telesphorus (125-136) instituted the tradition of celebrating midnight Mass, which means Christmas was already being celebrated. St. Theophilus (AD 115-181), bishop of Caesarea, stated, “We ought to celebrate the birthday of Our Lord on what day soever the 25th of December shall happen.” [Magdeburgenses, de orign Festorum Chirstianorum]. However, there is some conjecture of whether or not the above additions to this manuscript were very early (c. 600 AD) "additions" to the text (i.e., they were 'forged' into the text to evidence an early date for Christmas). Even if that is indeed the case, both Hippolytus of Rome (AD 170-240) and Clement of Alexandria (AD 153-217) commented on December 25th as the celebration/observation of the birth of Jesus. So even if Theophilus never said the above quote, not long after his dates, Hyppolytus and Clement both commented on December 25 which lends further support that the date of Sol Invictus was changed by the Romans from August or October to December to counter the Christian observance of Christmas. In short, it seems likely Christmas was already being observed by Christians by the early 2nd century AD which would predate Sol Invictus.
It’s funny how Christianity is so confident in their faith of the messiah arriving but don’t know when he was actually born with no record of it. They adopted December 25 a Pagan tradition as the date. Christianity adopted the Old Testament from the Jewish faith. The New Testament is the retelling of older religious stories. Is there any thing that isn’t borrowed? 🎅🏻🎄
Please do some research on pronunciations of the words for which you are not familiar. "Celts" = "Kelts", not "selts". The Americanized pronunciation of Boston Celtics is incorrect. "Buche" = "boosh", not whatever it was you said.
@ajrwilde14 . Trinity. Three persons one God . Christ is said to have two Natures as well ' Devine Nature and human Nature ' but he is one . The best way to understand these things is to relate it to the reality of existence ' such as in our body that works as one but we can devide sections of that one ie ' body , mind and soul ' and thay operate as one in the manifest body ' I'm not three people ,am I ? But in us there is still some discrepancy between the parts as mind and body dont always reflect true soul but in wholeness they are one exactly source of and manifest in union' and that one is the truth, the life and the light which is The true reflection of God and his word .
Well the lights on the tree represent the star.The presents are cos of the three wise men.we celebrate the birth of our king Jesus.what he’s saying now,I was going to say .just for those who don’t know❤
„The Revelation of JESUS Christ, which GOD gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: Who bare record of the word of GOD, and of the testimony of JESUS Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.” (Chapter 1:1-3)
LOL The usual mythology about de-mythologising myth. There was no 'pagan Christmas', fact, not fiction .. and certainly not myth. Thus, traditions related to the Mass (liturgy, public service by Christians) to celebrate Christ .. are Christian - not, however, necessarily of Jewish origin, though the Roman Liturgy is similar to old-time Synagogue-type meetings (some are related to the Jerusalem Temple Cult, some to the witness of the Apostles, some to the formal manner of Roman public address). Note well, the Romans - Pagan and Christian - were great assimilators though also stick-in-the-mud traditionists .. if something fitted the Roman manner it could be accommodated, with modification, if it could not fit, it was rejected (at times vigorously). Burning a Yule Log, for instance, in the Imperial military capital at Trier or in a Saxon Great Hall in Britain was a necessity not a niceity .. even among Christians; however, sacrificing a virgin youth to the Oak Grove (the Green Man myth) was not; each one would have fallen, more or less, on either side of the time set for the Christ Mass - but one survived, even among Roman Christians, yet the other did not make into the Roman Pagan grade of decorum. So the current (and long-standing) attempt to separate the Roman Christ from the Roman Catholic Mass, and both from the Anglo-Saxon forms of Christmastide (duly Victorian-ised) as found in the US of A (with some German Lutheran customs) is itself a form of popular myth-creation, not antique myth-busting, much the same with Pascaltide and the Germanic customs called Easter in English (not in the older Roman terminology); a Spanish or Greek or Coptic Christmas and Pasch have a very different feel .. having different Roman customs around them, many not at all dissimilar to the Pagan ways considered decorous all those many centuries ago (when Christians read or heard Hesiod and Cicero as well as Maccabees and Deuteronomy, in Greek or Latin translation, rather than the local usually truncated KJV or advertising newspaper alone). History can be fun .. as well as informative .. when we let it. Yey! ;o)
Merry Christmas to all the non-believers and all the haters out there. The born of Jesus Christ was celebrated in the bible. And for you, that makes this video. You need to do more research to find out if Christmas was celebrated before the pagan festival.
I am Germanic Pagan/Heathen, and appreciate that you made this information available for non-pagans especially Christians. Christians often ask me why I would celebrate the giving of gifts on the holiday. I have tried explain to them that it was an older tradition, appropriated by Chtistians like Easter, which was originally Eostre.
And it's even written in their scriptures to not do christmas in Jeremiah 10:1-5, yet they still do it. Have you read this?
Jeremiah 10:1-5
1 Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:
2 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
@@michaelfollowsyah I have so much respect for pagans who know this more than the so-called Christians They don't even know/believe what they THINK they know/believe.
Me too! The church sucks
I still celebrate, but it’s all bs
@@michaelfollowsyahyou don’t even know when He was born.
Thank you so much for giving such an excellent informative history on the true origins of Christmas. You are one of the few people that seems to know how the Christmas celebrations truly started.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great informative video! Thanks for sharing
Thank you for this wonderful, informative video 🖤
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you very much, what a great video! 😊🎉
Happy Saturnia! 🪐
Thanks for making a video
It's my pleasure
You did a very good job. A great voice for story telling. Very very thorough documentary . Thank you
Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed the documentary and found it thorough.
Pagan festivals was happening probably 1000 years or more before Christianity and the Christian Church morphed a lot of the pagan practices to fit the their narrative. I’m 54 years old and just realised that Jesus wasn’t born at Christmas and learnt the Church took a pagan festival starting 21st December and picked the 25th December as Christmas! To say I’m so miffed and stunned by this is an understatement. So it turns out I’m more Pagan than Christian, I feel my identity has been completely changed. There is a better and more in-depth video than this but this is a good one. Since a child I’ve always believed in the Christmas Tree and lights - I see why now!
HaSatan has deceived the whole world. Your parents lied; their parents lied; their parents lied, et cetera until you get to someone in your family tree that knowingly committed open rebellion against *AHAYAH ASHAR AHAYAH* (Hebrew for I AM THAT I AM). It happened to me. You have one of two choices to make: Serve The Most High as HE has declared to do it. Or commit the same spiritual fornication as our ancestors. I empathize and sympathize with you. I hope you can resist the temptation and make the right choice.
PART 3 -
Let’s quickly look at two more things with alleged pagan roots - the yule log and mistletoe (as well as other green plants like holly and ivy).
Yule, for the ancient Germanic people, typically referred to the Winter Solstice and celebrations were held around that time. Yule was subsequently placed on 25 December by King Haakon the Good in the 10th century AD to coincide with Christmas. This goes back to the early historian Snorri Sturluson, and his book "Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway." Snorri says before this, “Yule was celebrated on a midwinter night (the Winter Solstice), and for a duration of three nights". He gives no specific dates, but St. Bede in “The reckoning of Time,” opined the Northmen calculated their seasons according to the cycles of the moon, so the date of Yule probably changed every year to align with the Winter Solstice. Pliny the elder also says the Gallic tribes calculated their months according to the moon. Last, according to the Chronicler, Theitmar, the Danes sacrificed to pagan gods in January after the 6th. So, Yule kind of gets moved around. One thing associated with pagan Yule is of course the Yule Log.
Yule Logs however do not go back to paganism, despite the name. Yule is also an English word to mean "mid-winter period." The first mention of yule logs is in Robert Herrick’s, "Hesperides” a poetry collection, and he calls it a Christmas log. It wasn't called a yule log until Aubrey's work “In the West-Riding of Yorkshire on Christmas Eve” which dates to 1686. So, the Yule Log is really a more recent concept and has zero connections back to some pagan antecedent.
Many people associate mistletoe, ivy and holly with the ancient Celts as all three plants were held as sacred in Druidism. Thus, they opine, their inclusion in Christmas is pagan and this is proffered as just one more reason not to celebrate Christmas due to its pagan origins.
Again, historical similarity does not equate to historical sameness. The first mention of mistletoe in connection with Christmas goes back to only the 1600’s. The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe comes even later, the end of the 1700’s. Again, no ties to an ancient pagan past.
Most people have heard the story about how the ancient Germanic people brought evergreen trees into their houses around Winter Solstice (Germanic ‘Yule’) and typically hung them upside down from rafters. It leaves us with images of a Viking long house bedecked with several trees hanging from the rafters while those gathered inside made merry with fire, feasting and mead.
Except that never happened. There is no historical evidence from any of the eddas or sagas or any writings, that offer a shred of historical evidence to support the idea that pagan Germanic peoples brought evergreen trees into their homes at Yule.
There was no borrowing of this Germanic custom from the Romans who borrowed it from blah, blah, blah, who borrowed it from blah, blah, blah. This custom has absolutely zero ties to any supposed Biblical reference.
The origins of Christmas trees are rooted in present-day Germany and date to the 16th century. The first mention of Christmas trees is in an Alsace ordinance in 1561. Almost no early Germanic pagans thought pine trees were sacred, let alone associated with Christmas. Germanic tribes believed the oak was sacred, not the evergreen tree.
The Christmas tree morphed over from so-called paradise trees. There were many allegorical-type plays done in the Middle Ages at various markets. One such play was called the Paradise Play, performed to celebrate the feast day of Adam and Eve, which fell on Christmas Eve. In the dead of winter, not a lot of trees are available, so the “tree of knowledge” was represented by an evergreen fir with apples tied to its branches. There is documentation of trees decorated with wool thread, straw, apples, nuts and pretzels. After the play, the treats would be eaten. The practice likely gave way to having trees in the house at Christmas. In 1419 for example, a guild in Freiburg put up a tree decorated with apples, flour-paste wafers, tinsel and gingerbread. The Christmas tree is not historically attested any earlier than this time period. Again, historical similarity does not equate to historical sameness.
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy holidays!
PART 4 -
Odin and Santa
It is often claimed that Óðinn/Odin was believed by the Norse to bring presents for children at Jól/Yule, but no one seems to be able to cite a single source of historical evidence to support this claim. The reason being is that there is none.
Óðinn is primarily associated with Jól through his epithet Jólnir, which means “the Yuler” or “the One Who Yules.” This epithet is attested in the very old skaldic poem Háleygjatal, composed in the late tenth century CE by the skaldic poet Eyvindr Skáldaspillir.
There are over eighty different names for Óðinn attested in the surviving Old Norse sources and Jólnir is merely one of these many names. Additionally, although the epithet Jólnir certainly indicates that Óðinn was associated with the holiday of Jól in some way, it does not explain the nature of this association. It certainly does not even remotely suggest in any way that any Norse person during the Middle Ages ever thought that Óðinn might have brought people presents at Jól.
Many Old Norse sources, including the Saga of Hákon the Good, written by the Icelandic antiquarian Snorri Sturluson (lived 1179 - 1241), suggest that Jól was a time when people drank toasts to various deities. Many historians speculate that Óðinn may have simply been the main deity to whom people drank toasts at Jól and that this may be the reason for his association with the holiday.
This bit of misinformation seems to have originated as a backformation based on the pre-existing assumption that Santa Claus has been influenced by Óðinn. Since Santa Claus is said to bring presents to children at Christmas today and people already assumed Santa has been influenced by Óðinn, they seem to have concluded that Óðinn must have brought presents in midwinter as well, despite there being zero historical evidence attesting this.
The name “Santa” is simply a corruption of the Dutch “Sinter” (Saint) - nothing more, nothing less. “Clause” a corruption of the Dutch “Klaas” - a common nickname for Nicholas. Dutch Sinter Klaas, was brought to the US by the Dutch who settled in what they called New Holland (i.e. New York) and was subsequently Anglicized to “Santa Claus”.
St. Nicholas was, of course, real person. He was a bishop in Myra, in what is now Turkey. His feast day is celebrated on 6 December. It is on that date that children in Europe would receive treats and gifts. His association was later moved to 25 December to help make Christmas a family holiday. Newspapers promoted it and encouraged to give gifts on Christmas instead of St. Nicholas Day or New Years like it traditionally was. Sinterklaas was rebranded from a bishop to look like a traditional dutchman from around the 1800’s. Then, of course, commercialism got to him and he’s morphed into the character he is today.
As a quick aside, another name one frequently hears is “Father Christmas”. He, surprisingly, pre-dates the modern Santa Claus, but he is not some pagan deity. Instead, he was a Medieval personification of Christmas. Richard Smart of Plymtree is the first to write about him, referring to him as Sir Christmas. It seems his main task is to announce the birth of Christ.
Feasting and merrymaking at holidays is hardly the sole realm of paganism, so I won’t even touch that one.
Christmas Carols themselves are quite ancient - some of the first ones can be traced to 4th century Rome - these were all sung in Latin and developed from hymns. Secular carols first started appearing around the 1400’s - the custom of singing them going door to door comes from English wassailing (Wassail is from the Anglo-Saxon “wês hâl - be (thou) healthy! (hâl is modern English “hale”)). A custom of going around wishing everyone health for the new year - typically in exchange for a cup of waissail - a mulled alcoholic punch (think German Glühwein or Scandinavian glög).
Though mentioned in Beowulf and in the Anglo-Saxon account of the Battle of Hastings, it doesn’t necessarily equate to a “pagan” custom, at least not a religious one - you’re just toasting someone wishing them good health; not sure I necessarily see that as inherently “pagan”. Kind of pushes the envelope. And yes, every tradition, including pagan traditions, have some form of song-singing associated with them. Yet again, historical and cultural similarity does not equate with sameness. This same sentiment also applies to lights at Christmas - they have a very different meaning and symbolism than the pagan traditions, so to suggest they have some sort of pagan antecedent does not stand to reason.
I’m sure I’ve left out other things as well, but the thing to note is that when we celebrate Christmas (and other holidays as well), we are definitely participating in a tradition with deep historical roots. But those roots are firmly situated in an early and medieval Christian past, not an ancient pagan one.
Yeah and Christianity is in essence sun worship so it's still pagan.
Paganism is a way of life not a religion.
this video was such a delightful watch, really loved the insights! but honestly, i can't help but wonder if we're just romanticizing these traditions more than they deserve. some of them have pretty dark origins, yet they’re celebrated so brightly today. what's your take on that?
Roasted boar’s 🐗 head together with roasted goose, and Clifty Farm Country Ham on the dinner table just in time for Christmas 🎄.
It’s crazy how the entire birth sequence of Christ revolves around astronomical events & specific stars and constellations; yet the vast majority of people have no idea
3 wise men= the belt stars of Orion, The Three Kings
Star in the East = Sirius
Dec 21st the sun “dies” & doesn’t move for 3/4days until Dec 24/25th when it rises one degree signaling that warmer days will come….etc etc
Merry Christmas tho! Lol
PS: the first bishops & cardinals of the Catholic Church were former PAGAN high priests…all they did was change the color & style of their robes lol
It rises 0.1 degrees.
Is this a real person doing the narration or is this like a a script reading program?
🔥🌞🔥
December 20/21 night is the longest night of the year, the last night of autumn (Azar 30) and the beginning of winter (Dey 1) (according to Persian solar calendar) and is believed that Mithra, the God/lord of light (fire) was born on this night which has roots in the Mithraism believes (an 8000 years old religion originated in Iran). Later on Mithraism was adopted by Europeans and was the main religion of Roman or Greece empires of 500 years. So these Mithraism celebrations also was transferred to their traditions and symbol such is fire, pine tree, … became the symbol of winter solstice and then Christmas.
Next..., Easter.
PART 1 -
The idea that Christmas is pagan actually comes from die-hard Protestant fundamentalists in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In those centuries, many Protestants regarded holidays like Christmas and Easter as “popery” and therefore sought to discredit them by linking them with ancient paganism. The idea that Christmas might be pagan was advanced as early as 1648 in the work Certain Queries Touching the Rise and Observation of Christmas, written by the Puritan Joseph Heming. Later fundamentalist writers really took the idea and ran with it.
For a serious researcher, perhaps the most difficult aspect of researching various origins, traditions, and assumed ‘truths’ about holidays, is sifting through all the data and separating what is historical _fact_ from the myth, legend, and, even, religious propaganda by some denominations of what is historical _fiction._
It’s not an easy task. Indeed, what makes this even more difficult, is that so many of these ‘’facts”, suppositions, and assumptions are so ill-researched and have been repeated for so long, that they have essentially become accepted as truth. One can find these asserted ‘facts’ in everything ranging from various educational websites to entries in dictionaries and encyclopedias, and even in (some) scholarly articles which, I think, only makes researching the actual origins quite difficult. People are just repeating what they’ve been told and assume to be true without question.
What we find after close examination and scrutiny however, is that the accepted origins and traditions of holidays come from the latter (historical fiction), rather than the former (historical fact).
Let’s tackle the date first. Many are keen to assert that the December 25th date was chosen because it is so close to the Winter Solstice, a date known to have various pagan celebrations.
The date of December 25th for the birth of Jesus has nothing to do with anything pagan, it is a straightforward deduction from Scripture, analyzed in conjunction with historical knowledge about those who worked in the temple. To briefly summarize: The priestly course of Abias (the course of Saint Zacharias) was undoubtedly serving during the second week of the Jewish month of Tishri-the very week of the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of Tishri. In our calendar, the Day of Atonement would land anywhere from September 22 to October 8. Zacharias and Elizabeth conceived John the Baptist immediately after Zacharias served his course. This entails that Saint John the Baptist would have been conceived somewhere around the end of September, placing John’s birth at the end of June, confirming the early church’s celebration of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on June 24. The rest of the dating is rather simple. We read that just after the Virgin Mary conceived Christ, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was six months pregnant with John the Baptist. This means that John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus. If you add six months to June 24 you get December 24-25 as the birthday of Jesus. Then, if you subtract nine months from December 25 you get that the Annunciation was March 25.
So, as can be seen, the date was derived from considerations having nothing whatsoever to do with Roman festivals or any other December-related cultural or non-Christian religious activities. Granted, modern scholarship has demonstrated that the birth of Jesus actually occurred more likely in either the Spring, at some point in early April, or in the fall, at some point in late September, but for people living almost 2,000 years ago however, they used what data they had, and none of it came from pre-Christian or pagan sources.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope St. Telesphorus (125-136) instituted the tradition of celebrating midnight Mass, which means Christmas was already being celebrated. St. Theophilus (AD 115-181), bishop of Caesarea, stated, “We ought to celebrate the birthday of Our Lord on what day soever the 25th of December shall happen.” [Magdeburgenses, de orign Festorum Chirstianorum].
In short, Christmas was already being celebrated by Christians by the early 2nd century AD.
To be completely fair, the first historically recorded instance of Christmas being celebrated dates to 336 AD as a note on an old list of Roman bishops written in 354 AD, which suggests that it was already a known celebration.
The predominant pagan celebrations that are usually targeted as the culprit of Christmas’ origins are Saturnalia, Mithris, and Sol Invictus.
Let’s look at these.
Saturnalia -
First, the Winter Solstice had no festive significance to ancient Romans. There were no celebrations planned for the date and they disagreed on when it was. The Julian Calendar does say 12/25, but Pliny the Elder says 12/26 (nat. his. 18.59.221), and Columella says 12/23 (De Re Rustica 9.14.12).
Saturnalia was a Roman festival of Saturn and was never on December 25th. Macrobius says Saturnalia began 14 days before January, which comes out to December 17th, using Roman Calendrical dates. He says it lasted for 3 days, but according to the Fasti inscriptions, it lasted to around the 23rd during the days of the Republic. In short, the official dates for how long Saturnalia was supposed to last varied depending on which time period a person happened to live in, and which emperor happened to be in power at the time. Nonetheless, throughout the entire period of the Roman Republic (lasted c. 509 - c. 27 BCE) and the Principate (lasted c. 27 BCE - c. 284 CE), by the time December 25th rolled around, Saturnalia was definitely already over. Throughout this entire period of Roman history, there is not a single mention of anyone ever celebrating Saturnalia on December 25th or even thinking that other people celebrated it on December 25th. The celebration itself may originally have been a farming festival; the evidence is unclear.
It was associated with an overturning of various regulations and social norms: free citizens often wore a freedman’s hat, the pilleus, and played gambling games that were normally illegal; slaves would dine alongside their masters, or even act the part of master. People would exchange gifts of candles and clay figurines.
There’s absolutely no link to Christmas. The date? No, they’re not on the same date. . . . The fact that Saturnalia _might_ have had some influence on Christmas isn’t evidence that it did.
Historical similarity does not equate to historical sameness. The modern custom of gift-giving at Christmas does not tie back to pagan Saturnalia. It dates back to the 16th century. That is when Luther introduced the Christkind in an attempt to discourage veneration of St Nicholas, who was associated with gift-giving on his feast day of 6 December. In late mediaeval Germany gift-giving had also been associated with the feast of the Holy Innocents, on 28 December. It’s possible that Christmas charity from aristocrats to the poor goes back a bit further. But there’s certainly no evidence to suggest continuity all the way back to when Saturnalia was still being celebrated.
This!
PART 2 -
Mithraism -
The Roman cult of Mithras seems to have begun in Rome and spread out mainly via the Roman military and merchants, with particular clusters of activity, judging from the archaeology, along the Danubian frontier. Mithra was a Persian deity brought over from Zoroastrianism. Despite its outward pretensions to Persian origins and antiquity, the Roman cult of Mithras seems to have had a uniquely Roman iconography, theology and ritual, acting as an exclusive, male-only and secretive religious club.
The idea that there are many remarkable parallels between Mithraism and Christianity and that the latter is therefore derived, at least in part, from the former maintains its imaginative hold on those who don’t bother checking these things. Unfortunately, despite their regular repetition, virtually none of these parallels stand up to critical scrutiny.
The claim that Mithras was “born of a virgin”, for example, seems to have no basis in any of the evidence for the Roman god. After the tauroctony, the most common image of Mithras does indeed depict his birth. Unfortunately, no “virgin” is involved and the parallels with the stories of the birth of Jesus are nowhere to be found. This is because the Roman god was thought to have been born, fully formed and entirely adult, from a rock - the so-called petra genetrix
But the element of the myths around Mithras and Christmas that is repeated most often is the claim that Mithraists celebrated the god’s birthday on December 25th and that this is the reason we celebrate Christmas on this date.
The claim that Mithra has “many stories associated with him” is nonsense, given that we have no “stories” about the Roman god at all. That aside, the claim that December 25th was a festival of the birth of Mithras is garbage. Mithraic scholar Roger Beck calls the idea that Mithras’ birth was associated with December 25th “the hoariest of ‘facts’” but it keeps getting repeated despite it having no foundation.
It arose out of a confusion between a feast of the birth of the “Unconquered Sun” - Sol Invictus - on that date and the fact that Mithras Sol Invictus is one of the titles of Mithras found in Mithraic inscriptions. So, some have conflated the two and decided that “Sol Invictus” always refers to Mithras and so December 25th was the date of the festival of his birth.
Saturnalia -
Another candidate for a pagan Roman festival that Christmas supposedly appropriated or incorporated or supplanted is Sol Invictus, which at least fell on December 25th. But the earliest date provided by historical evidence, for the Roman celebration is 274 AD, when it was instituted by the Roman emperor Aurelian. But the December 25th date for this festival did not begin in 274. It came eighty years later:
There is no evidence that Aurelian instituted a celebration of Sol on December 25. As mentioned, a feast day for Sol on December 25th is not mentioned until eighty years later, in the Calendar of 354 AD and, subsequently, in 362 AD by Julian in his Oration to King Helios.
In short, while the winter solstice on or around the 25 December was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas, and none that indicates that Aurelian had a hand in its institution.
Upon examination, the notion that the cult of Sol in late antiquity represented a new pagan religion that potentially threatened to thwart Christianity, is not supported by any clear evidence.
After reviewing the evidence of a December 25th date in the pagan Roman calendar, Dr. Steven E. Hijmans, Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Alberta, Canada, concludes:
None of this tells us when the natalis invicti of December 25 entered the Roman calendar, but on this evidence, we must acknowledge that it is a real possibility that it did not do so until after the bishop of Rome first celebrated Christmas on that day.
The beginning of the observance of Sol Invictus on December 25th, started anywhere from 70-220 years after Christians were celebrating Christmas on that date. So, the myth of Christmas coming from Sol Invictus can be safely laid to rest.
The earliest attested date for the celebration of Sol Invictus is 274 AD, but it wasn't originally celebrated on December 25th. There is evidence to suggest Sol Invictus was originally observed as early as August or October and was only later changed to December 25th as a possible way for the Romans to counter Christians celebrating/observing Christmas, not the other way around.
According to the Liber Pontificalis, Pope St. Telesphorus (125-136) instituted the tradition of celebrating midnight Mass, which means Christmas was already being celebrated. St. Theophilus (AD 115-181), bishop of Caesarea, stated, “We ought to celebrate the birthday of Our Lord on what day soever the 25th of December shall happen.” [Magdeburgenses, de orign Festorum Chirstianorum].
However, there is some conjecture of whether or not the above additions to this manuscript were very early (c. 600 AD) "additions" to the text (i.e., they were 'forged' into the text to evidence an early date for Christmas).
Even if that is indeed the case, both Hippolytus of Rome (AD 170-240) and Clement of Alexandria (AD 153-217) commented on December 25th as the celebration/observation of the birth of Jesus. So even if Theophilus never said the above quote, not long after his dates, Hyppolytus and Clement both commented on December 25 which lends further support that the date of Sol Invictus was changed by the Romans from August or October to December to counter the Christian observance of Christmas.
In short, it seems likely Christmas was already being observed by Christians by the early 2nd century AD which would predate Sol Invictus.
Where is the evidence of Christians celebrating in December, there's no mention of it in the gospels.
Sins of the parents oh yeah
It’s funny how Christianity is so confident in their faith of the messiah arriving but don’t know when he was actually born with no record of it. They adopted December 25 a Pagan tradition as the date. Christianity adopted the Old Testament from the Jewish faith. The New Testament is the retelling of older religious stories. Is there any thing that isn’t borrowed? 🎅🏻🎄
Read Ceasar's Messiah. Or youtube
We shouldn’t buy these expensive gifts ,I say grace before I eat quietly in my head ❤
My sister has a Uylog as a birthday cake on December 24. 🪵
Yule log cake.
Said in Gordon Ramsay's voice "ITS F---ING RA" It's pronounced Rah not R A.
Please do some research on pronunciations of the words for which you are not familiar.
"Celts" = "Kelts", not "selts". The Americanized pronunciation of Boston Celtics is incorrect.
"Buche" = "boosh", not whatever it was you said.
Christmas is not pagan.
It is about a monotheistic faith.
Why the trinity then.
@ajrwilde14 . Trinity.
Three persons one God .
Christ is said to have two Natures as well ' Devine Nature and human Nature ' but he is one .
The best way to understand these things is to relate it to the reality of existence ' such as in our body that works as one but we can devide sections of that one ie ' body , mind and soul ' and thay operate as one in the manifest body ' I'm not three people ,am I ?
But in us there is still some discrepancy between the parts as mind and body dont always reflect true soul but in wholeness they are one exactly source of and manifest in union' and that one is the truth, the life and the light which is The true reflection of God and his word .
Oh how I hate AI voice overs? The Egyptians celebrated and honored R.A.? You mean the Sun God Ra? Seriously.
You are incorrect about December 25th. Do more study.
Well the lights on the tree represent the star.The presents are cos of the three wise men.we celebrate the birth of our king Jesus.what he’s saying now,I was going to say .just for those who don’t know❤
„The Revelation of JESUS Christ, which GOD gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:
Who bare record of the word of GOD, and of the testimony of JESUS Christ, and of all things that he saw.
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.”
(Chapter 1:1-3)
LOL The usual mythology about de-mythologising myth. There was no 'pagan Christmas', fact, not fiction .. and certainly not myth. Thus, traditions related to the Mass (liturgy, public service by Christians) to celebrate Christ .. are Christian - not, however, necessarily of Jewish origin, though the Roman Liturgy is similar to old-time Synagogue-type meetings (some are related to the Jerusalem Temple Cult, some to the witness of the Apostles, some to the formal manner of Roman public address).
Note well, the Romans - Pagan and Christian - were great assimilators though also stick-in-the-mud traditionists .. if something fitted the Roman manner it could be accommodated, with modification, if it could not fit, it was rejected (at times vigorously). Burning a Yule Log, for instance, in the Imperial military capital at Trier or in a Saxon Great Hall in Britain was a necessity not a niceity .. even among Christians; however, sacrificing a virgin youth to the Oak Grove (the Green Man myth) was not; each one would have fallen, more or less, on either side of the time set for the Christ Mass - but one survived, even among Roman Christians, yet the other did not make into the Roman Pagan grade of decorum.
So the current (and long-standing) attempt to separate the Roman Christ from the Roman Catholic Mass, and both from the Anglo-Saxon forms of Christmastide (duly Victorian-ised) as found in the US of A (with some German Lutheran customs) is itself a form of popular myth-creation, not antique myth-busting, much the same with Pascaltide and the Germanic customs called Easter in English (not in the older Roman terminology); a Spanish or Greek or Coptic Christmas and Pasch have a very different feel .. having different Roman customs around them, many not at all dissimilar to the Pagan ways considered decorous all those many centuries ago (when Christians read or heard Hesiod and Cicero as well as Maccabees and Deuteronomy, in Greek or Latin translation, rather than the local usually truncated KJV or advertising newspaper alone).
History can be fun .. as well as informative .. when we let it. Yey! ;o)
Merry Christmas to all the non-believers and all the haters out there. The born of Jesus Christ was celebrated in the bible. And for you, that makes this video. You need to do more research to find out if Christmas was celebrated before the pagan festival.