The Origins Of Christmas Pagan
Africanglobe many people suffer from the misconception that christmas is a christian holiday.
The origins of christmas pagan. The christmas tree is a 17th century german invention university of bristol s hutton told livescience but it clearly derives from the pagan practice of bringing greenery indoors to decorate in. Though december 25 is the day christians celebrate the birth of jesus christ the date itself and several of the customs we ve come to associate with christmas actually evolved from pagan. The ancient origins of santa claus the christmas tree. The christmas tree is considered by some as christianisation of pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the winter solstice which included the use of evergreen boughs and an adaptation of pagan tree worship.
Favourite christmas pastimes such as caroling and gift giving have their origins in the pre christian pagan populaces of europe. Christmas is a pagan holiday. The earliest history of christmas is composed of pagan non christian fertility rites and practices which predate jesus by centuries. Pagan origins of christmas sun worship the pegan origins of christmas can be traced back to the commemoration of the winter solstice celebrated in europe on or around december 22nd.
According to eighth century biographer æddi stephanus saint boniface 634 709 who was a missionary in germany took an ax to an oak. The neopagan yule is loosely based on the germanic festival of the same name and i say loosely because we don t have much information about what the original pagan festival was as most of the information we have on germanic paganism comes from christian sources. Prior to england becoming a nation the caucasian or anglo saxon used the word geol derived from the word yule or phrase yuletide season to. Christmas christian festival celebrating the birth of jesus the english term christmas mass on christ s day is of fairly recent origin.
We can still see the pagan origins of christmas in many holiday traditions including mistletoe which symbolized fertility to pre christians and new life even in the depths of winter. As this article has shown christmas is not wholly a christian invention. The church absorbed customs and traditions from pre existing pagan winter festivals such as saturnalia and yule. In newly christianized areas where the pagan celtic and germanic cults remained strong legends of the god wodan were blended with those of various christian saints.
Saint nicholas was one of these.