Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Why is Christmas on December 25?

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

Every year, people around the world celebrate Christmas on December 25. In many countries, it is the biggest single holiday of the year. Why is it celebrated on December 25? Is there any historical basis for this date and if not, then why do we celebrate it on this date? Learn more about why we celebrate Christmas when we do on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every year, people around the world celebrate Christmas on December 25th. In many countries, it's the biggest single holiday of the year. Why is it celebrated on December 25th? Is there any historical basis for the state? And if not, then why do we celebrate it on this date? Learn more about why we celebrate Christmas when we do on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison.

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in a search for salvation. This episode is sponsored by Audible.com. My audiobook recommendation today is Silent Night, The Remarkable 1914 Christmas Truce by Stanley Weintraub. In the beginning months of World War a very strange thing happened. After the fierce trench warfare of November and December,

on Christmas Eve 1914, the fighting spontaneously stopped. Men on both sides laid down their arms and came to celebrate Christmas with each other. They shared food parcels across the lines, sang carols together, and erected Christmas trees with candles. They buried the dead, exchanged presents, and even played soccer together. You can get a free one-month trial to Audible and two free audiobooks by going to Audibletrial.com slash everything everywhere, or by clicking on the link in the

show notes. The first thing that's necessary to establish is that there is nothing documented in any writing from the Bible or other ancient sources, which gives a date for the birth of Jesus. Nothing. It isn't even implied or hinted at. So for all practical purposes, we really have no idea what day or even what month Jesus was born. Then, why do we celebrate it on December 25th? To a certain extent, any day that was chosen would be just as good as the next if you don't know what the real date is. It would be an arbitrary. choice. But December 25th isn't arbitrary. There's a good reason why it was picked. Initially, in the very early Christian church, during the first two centuries of its existence,

there is no mention or indication that the birth of Jesus was celebrated. The first known date we have of a December 25th celebration of the birth of Jesus is in the year 336 during the reign of Emperor Constantine. Constantine, as I've mentioned in previous episodes, brought Christianity out from being an underground religion. Many of the traditions of early Christians were able to be openly celebrated, and many of them were finally documented. Most people, when given an explanation about why December 25 was chosen, get the story half right. By that I mean what they say isn't technically wrong, but it doesn't tell the whole truth, and it doesn't explain why that date in particular was chosen. December 25th was in the Roman calendar, the festival

of Sol Invictus. Sol Invictus was a god, and Solenvictus means the unconquered sun, as in sun in the sky. There are debates as to if Saul invictus was a separate deity from Saul. But as far as the celebration goes, it was a festival that was established rather late in the Roman Empire in the year 275 by the Emperor Orelian. It was probably a foreign god that was brought alongside Roman gods. Aurelian was from Dacia, which is today the region around Serbia and Bulgaria, and he probably brought the tradition with him. His mother may have been a son priestess. It was celebrated on December 25th, because that was the day on the Roman calendar, which was celebrated as the winter solstice. Actually, and I addressed this in my episode on the Julian calendar, by the time Aurelian was emperor, the actual solstice wasn't on

December 25th anymore. In 275, if you check it out on a calendar converter, the actual solstice was on December 21st. However, back during the founding of the Republic about 500 years earlier, the solstice did fall on the 25th, and the Romans stuck to their calendar dates, even though the dates slowly shifted over time. And just as an aside, the Roman calendar got so screwed up by the time of Julius Caesar that their harvest festival was starting before they actually began planting. When Christianity began to spread, and when the empire officially endorsed Christianity, they would often baptize pagan customs and make them Christian. This way it was easier for people to join with the program, and they could still be Christian, but celebrate all the festivals they did

before. So yes, Christmas falls on the day of the Roman pagan festival of Saul Invictus, which was on December 25th, which at one time was the winter solstice. That is the part that most people get right. What they fail to explain is why they pick Solenvictus. The Romans had tons of holidays and festivals. Like most cultures, they had spring celebrations, summer celebrations, harvest festivals, and of course one for the winter solstice. Why did they pick that when they could have picked any other Roman holiday? In fact, the Roman festival of Saturnalia took place just a week before Solenvictus, and it was a far bigger deal. Why didn't they just take it? Why didn't they just take that holiday over. As it turns out, the object wasn't picking the winter solstice, so much as it was

the result of seeking another date, and that date was March 25th. This is the date that many early Christians cared about. The early Christian historian, Sextus Julius Africanus, set the date of Jesus' conception to be March 25th. This was because there was a belief that prophets died on the same day they were conceived, and it was believed that Jesus died on March 25th. March 25th was also believed to be the day that the world was created, and back then it also happened to fall on the spring equinox. So the creation of the world, the conception of Jesus, and the death of Jesus, all worked out really well for the early Christians, and that day, the day they really cared about, was March 25th. Once you set the date of the conception, then it's just a matter of working ahead

nine months to figure out the date for a birth. If March 25th was the conception of Jesus, then Ipsophacto, December 25th had to be the day he was born, assuming a nine, month gestation. Today in the Catholic Church, March 25th, is still celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation, which celebrates the conception of Jesus. So, yes, Christmas does fall on the Roman holiday of Solenvictus, but it wasn't selected because it was Solenvictus. Rather, it was an implication of setting the date of conception to March 25th. As the Julian calendar slowly drifted and was eventually replaced by the Gregorian calendar, the date of December 25th stuck, even though it wasn't quite the solstice anymore. Of the educated guesses which have been made by biblical scholars, most of them probably think that the most likely time for Jesus' birth would have been in the spring or the fall.

If there was a Roman census, it probably wouldn't have been done in the winter, and there probably wouldn't have been that many shepherds out at that time of year. The December 25th celebration wasn't and isn't something that is universally celebrated by Christians. When Puritans came to America, they actually banned the celebration of Christmas in Massachusetts. Today, there are still some denominations that do not celebrate Christmas, such as Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses. Some places, more as a matter of culture than religion, put more emphasis on the Epiphany, which is January 6th, the day which Jesus was first met by Gentiles. Regardless of the long and circuitous route it took, whatever pagan holiday they may have taken over, Christmas and December 25th are now firmly set on modern calendars. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala. associate producer is Thor Thompson.

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