How Did Christmas Start?

Christmas really evolved out of the old Roman festival of Saturnalia. This was a midwinter feast and celebration of the sun. On the last day, 25 December, the feast of Mithras was held. Mithras ("the sun of righteousness") was a Persian god whose cult was adopted by the Romans. There were a number of different midwinter festivals throughout Europe, and many of their customs became part of Christmas tradition, such as drinking and exchanging gifts; even the Yule log is a survival of a pagan custom.

The Christian festival developed in the 4th or 5th century AD, and the old ones were deliberately adapted to make them more acceptable to a still largely unconverted population. Christ's birth date is uncertain, and there is no mention of winter in the gospels. In fact, the Puritans were so uneasy about the pagan and – even worse – Catholic associations of "Christ's mass" that they banned it. Even today, some hardline Christians regard it as a pagan irrelevance and refuse to celebrate it.