M3 Christmas Overview

            When is Christmas? December 25^th, as always. Why is that the date of Christmas? That’s more complicated.
See, scholars believe that the birth of Christ took place in either the spring or the autumn, which is when taxes were assessed by the Romans. That is the stated reason for Joseph traveling with his pregnant fiancée, so logically that is the time for it to happen. Scholars are dead certain that it wasn’t during December, and, trust me, traveling the desert in the winter is no picnic. Oh, sure, people think that it’s nice and warm, which, it can be . . . during the day . . . sometimes. But the air is very dry and bitterly cold, even at temperatures it’s not supposed to be that cold at.

            Now, There was a festival celebrated by pagans during December called the Saturnalia, popularized by the show The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon’s info is mostly correct, too. The whole ritual with the tree and garlands is from the Saturnalia festival and was adopted later by Christians seeking to convert more pagans. This happened also with Halloween, though Halloween kind of morphed into a curious amalgam of pagan and Christian.

            Christmas, though, took over whole hog. The day became firmly rooted as Christian, even though the gift-giving aspect of it is the pagan holiday. The gift givers, too, are now firmly rooted in Christmas despite pagan beginnings, but more on them later.