Ever since pulling back Santa’s curtain to reveal the true identity, I think Christmas lost almost all of its wonder. But in recent years I have seen a new tradition introduced that helps me to regain my child-like anticipation for Christmas. This new tradition is the always comical “War on Christmas.” For those of you unfamiliar, there is a movement towards Happy Holidays and away from Merry Christmas. If you watch some of the news about this then you would think, for Christians, no greater blasphemy has ever occurred in the history of mankind, because after all, Jesus is the reason for the season…right?
At no point in the Bible are Christians ever commanded, encouraged or asked to celebrate the birth of Christ, unlike the command to remember His death in Mark 14:22-24. So if you would like to defend Christmas as a holiday ordained by the Almighty, then you are going to have to go extra-Biblical. We are also given no date for the birth of Christ, so how did December 25th come to be the undisputed birthday of Jesus? There are two sides that surmise the origin of Christmas. I’ll present those two sides and you can decide, but more than likely which ever side you choose will affect exactly zero of the essential doctrines of the Christian faith.
The most commonly held view is that December 25 was chosen in order to over shadow a pagan holiday held on the same day. On December 17, the Romans celebrated Saturnalia which commemorated the birth of the sun god, Sol or Saturn. Supposedly the Roman courts were closed during this time, which led the feast to become notorious for heavy drinking, debauchery, orgies and all other sorts of tomfoolery. When Constantine decided to change the entire empire to Christianity, it was not an easy transition because holidays like Saturnalia were a part of the citizens’ lives. In order to ease the switch, the holiday was kept but changed to commemorate the birth of Christ. Thus we have Christ mass, eventually shortened to Christmas. One shortcoming with this view is that Saturnalia was not always celebrated up until December 25, but usually ended around the 23rd.
The problem for Christians arises with claims that ideas and themes from the celebration of Saturnalia were brought into the Christian faith and it has been forever skewed. Another side argues that Christians actually chose the December 25th date and it was coincidental that the celebration of Saturnalia occurred around the same time. The first evidence we have of Christians observing December 25 as the birthday of Christ comes in AD 336. However in 274, the emperor Aurelian institutes a new festival called “the Birth of the Unconquered Son” to be celebrated December 25. Aurelian, being against Christianity, could have implemented this to combat the Christians’ view of December 25th. Christians were a growing influence at this time, as well as a growing irritant to the emperors. The question remaining in this view is why the Christians chose December 25th?
The gospel of John dates the death of Christ on a Friday, the day before the Passover. Today scholars know that the only time the eve of Passover was a Friday was on April 7, 30 or April 3, 33. The early Christians however decided that the date of Christ’s crucifixion was March 25, 29. We now know that this is impossible since that was not a Sunday. They probably got this wrong because most Christians were now Greek and would have not been familiar with the Jewish calendar. 
To get to December 25, this view points out a probable wide spread superstition that a prophet’s death always coincided with either his birth or conception. Nine months from March 25 we get December 25 and a possible reason for it being the chosen date to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Both of the origin of Christmas views have trouble bringing conclusive evidence to the table, and although the first view seems easier, the second one is plausible as well. I don’t see any trouble with Christians remembering the birth of Jesus on Christmas and would definitely encourage others to use the time for fellowship with family and friends. What we can all agree on is that Santa Clause is nowhere to be found in the Bible, so we can probably stop labeling him as Christian and identify him for what he truly is…….a Communist.
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