It’s after the fact now, but I just ran into so many myths and misconceptions I just had to write something.
Whether or not you are a Christian, you know that Christmas is a holiday originally intended to commemorate the birth of Jesus, whom we call Christ (anointed one). You should also know that he was born in Bethlehem in Israel (at least, so the Bible says). There is also a reference to an event that supposedly occurred at the time – a census – and to the fact that Octavius (aka Augustus) Caesar was emperor. But there is no actual date given, and there is a lot of debate.
Consensus seems to be that he was born in what we would term 6 B.C., not in “the year 0”. There was no year 0 first off – the concept of 0 was invented later. There were a couple of astronomical events around that time – a supernova that became what we know as the Crab Nebula and also a planetary alignment, either of which may be the basis for the story of the Star of Bethlehem – and just in terms of other known events they think he must have been born then.
Was Jesus even born in December? Not likely – at least, not if the story of the shepherds is to be believed. They wouldn’t have been out watching their flocks at that time of year. Again, people who claim to be experts say that is more likely to have been in April or thereabouts.
So, why do we celebrate Christmas in December? Because they wanted to celebrate it sometime, and nobody knew when it really was – and because various “pagan” religions had some sort of celebration for the winter solstice, for the “return of the light” (the fact that the days were beginning to get longer again, in this hemisphere anyway).
I’ve heard a few Christmas songs even refer to snow at that time, but of course there is no basis in the Bible for that. Even if Jesus had been born in December, just how likely is snow in the Mideast? I suppose there’s a few mountains there somewhere which may get snow once in a while, but certainly none on the plains of Bethlehem.
I won’t even get into all the later myths surrounding Christmas – Santa Claus, flying reindeer and whatnot. It’s all good fun, but no one really believes there’s a thousand year old man in a red suit living at the North Pole.
But I mean, at Christmas Mass they began with an invocation that started “On December the 25th, in the year …” and they do know that isn’t true. I am a Christian, I certainly believe in commemorating the birth of Jesus, but I will not pretend it was actually on December the 25th.
