The Origins of the Christian Holydays: The Birth of Christ

Ah, the holydays! A time to gather with our family and friends to be merry and share laughs. A time to revel in our drunkenness and stupidity to be emancipated from the worries of life. A time to celebrate ancient rituals of origins which we’ve learned from our parents, and our parents from theirs and so on and so on and so on and so on, and not thinking (or caring) that the passage of time has dramatically changed the way we now celebrate our holidays. Honestly, all that matters is that school and work is out, and we have an excuse to get drunk and then crunk. Yes, bring on the holidays!

I, like many people, love the holidays for the reasons stated above. Being drunk and then getting crunk is almost always fun. The only time it’s not is tomorrow — but hey, that’s tomorrow’s problem. Another fun fact about me is that I grew up in a Christian household that celebrated many of ancient traditions at home and church. But as I grew up, I started questioning the beliefs that I was indoctrinated in which includes the holidays that many religious and secular folks celebrate. I discovered things no one has taught me, but I can only share a few things, since books can be written about this enormous topic. I think a great place to start is Christmas, the birth of the Messiah.

Christmas, Yuletide, the Mass of Christ, the birth of Christ, Feliz Navidad, Xmas, December 25th, or whatever you call it is a Western holiday celebrated worldwide — even in the East — by people of every kind. It’s a time where there is suppose to be plentiful of snow that creates a magical winter wonderland where Jack Frost is revived, so that we can gather inside together near the warmth of the hearth, while sipping hot chocolate or chugging eggnog, to remember the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ or to just celebrate whatever, and to receive gifts from some fat dude in a red suit named Santa Claus — who only gives gifts to those that are nice, not naughty — and he places the gifts under a decorated tree that families erected in their homes.

That’s a brief overview of Christmas and already questions are polluting my mind, and those questions are dying for fresh insight. Why do we decorate a tree and put gifts under it? Who is Santa Claus and less importantly (maybe more?), why is he fat, and why does he wear a red suit? If Christmas is originally about Christ’s birth, then what does a tree and fat man have to do with it? A fatter question is why do we celebrate it on December 25th when the Bible does not indicate that it’s on that date? I’ve just transformed into a child and my curiosity is unbounded - who, what, when, where, why, and how? There are many questions and tons more to discover and answer, so let’s get to it, and let’s start with the small ones first. First up - the fat cookie monster in the red suit.

SANTA CLAUS

We all know him, and if you don’t then you probably have amnesia. He’s in every mall in America during December, probably around the world too, and families line up in lines as long as the most popular rides at Disneyland so their children can take photos with him, while he calls everyone a ho thrice, before finally greeting them with “Merry Christmas”. They probably do this to relive the carefree days when they believed in the lie they were told by their parents, and want to pass this lie on for generations to come to follow tradition. I visited my mall Santa during my senior year in high school and took a photo with him with my friend to relive this glorious lie, but unfortunately I don’t have the photo anymore.

You may have heard before that he comes from a guy named Saint Nicholas who was a Greek Christian bishop during the 4th century who would give gifts to the poor. This man was so saintly that news about his killing kindness spread, and eventually he became a saint and got his own date to celebrate his saintliness. That day is St. Nicholas Day which is celebrated on December 6th.

Fast forward to the year 1517 — the Protestant Reformation started because people were upset at the Catholic Church for many reasons. A big one being that they thought it was the Whore of Babylon in Revelations — yes, a capital W. Another reason is because they honored all these people like Saint Nicholas when they should’ve only honored Christ. So, they split from the church and took some aspects of St. Nick’s Day. “The custom of gifting to children at Christmas has been propagated by Martin Luther as an alternative to the previous very popular gift custom on St. Nicholas, to focus the interest of the children to Christ instead of the veneration of saints (Wikipedia contributors, “Santa Claus”). This is why you're stressed and broke every Christmas. Thanks Martin Luther and Saint Nick!

There is a lard more history about Santa Claus but I don’t want this big man of small importance to take all the spotlight - he gets enough. Basically, he became popularized in books and then commercials, shows, and movies. It’s come to a point where we all know the story — he rides his supernatural sleigh guided by his flying reindeers going to every house in the world on Christmas Eve’s night to go down your chimney to give you gifts if you’ve been nice and coals if you’ve been naughty, and he eats your freshly baked cookies with some milk, or old stale cookies with rotten milk if you're naughty, and finally goes back to the north pole where he lives with Mrs. Claus and his slave elves. Who knows what Santa Claus is going to be like in a few years. And this all started with a man who gave gifts to the poor.

Oh yeah, his red suit and him being fat? Not that important, but maybe he glorifies gluttony, and it’s also interesting that Santa is an anagram for Satan, and that the devil is depicted as a red creature. Oh yeah, and Claus sounds like ‘clause’, but ‘claws’ makes more sense. Oh yeah, does he have anything to do with Christ’s birth? No. But when he invaded your home yearly, he put the gifts under a decorated tree. My question is simple, why a tree? Let’s find out.

THE CHRISTMAS TREE

“Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.” (KJV Bible, Jeremiah 10:2-5)

If you ask me, that sure resembles a Christmas tree. Although I’ve never “cutteth a tree out of the forest”, my family has definitely ‘boughteth’ a fake tree out of the ‘storest’ called WalMart, and we decked that tree out, if you know what I mean — ornaments of all kinds, red and green candy canes, multi-colored lights, silver and gold tinsels - it was the whole shebang. I know if real silver and gold was cheaper, or if we were richer, we would’ve used them too.

God called these tree decorators heathens, and yet every Christian I knew and many people around the world were adorning their tree and many still do. Jeremiah was written around the 7th century BCE, and it might be safe to assume this practice was happening way before that. So, how did a heathen pagan practice of erecting a tree become a centerpiece on the day Christ was born?

“Modern Christmas trees originated during the Renaissance in early modern Germany. Its 16th-century origins are sometimes associated with Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther, who is said to have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree (Wikipedia contributors, “Christmas Tree”). This explains the origins of the modern Christmas tree, and we have Martin Luther, father of the Reformation, at it again! We need to go back further. “The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews.” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica) Now, this makes sense.

According to Alexander Hislop, author of The Two Babylons: The Papal Worship Proved to be The Worship of Nimrod and His Wife, the tree symbolizes the rebirth of Nimrod. His premise is in the title. Hislop builds on the panbabylonian school of thought which considers that the cultures and religions around the world have been derived from Babylonian mythology. So, basically for him, all myths, legends, and religions point back to Babylon, specifically Nimrod. It’s an interesting theory and obviously aligns with Nimrod coming before Jeremiah. Not sure if I agree with everything he says, but it’s entertaining enough for me to hop on this train of thought. We can jump off whenever without wounding ourselves.

Nimrod is mentioned in the Book of Genesis as “a mighty hunter” and “a mighty one on Earth”. In informal North American English, nimrod is a stupid person. Not sure how that came about, but if anyone calls me a nimrod, I’ll ask, “With a capital N?”. Nimrod is the guy who is believed to have started the construction of the infamous Tower of Babel that defied God. Then God cursed us all with the confusion of tongues, and now I have no idea what my Korean relatives are saying whenever they speak. Maybe that’s how nimrod got its definition — “Why’d you want us to build that tower, you nimrod!” But that nimrod couldn’t understand a word, so my ancestors walked over to Korea and North America and settled there.

It’s possible that the tree symbolizes the rebirth of Nimrod, although interpreting history isn’t an exact science, so we can never be certain. But, let’s stay on this train of thought and see if it leads anywhere, even if it's nowhere, cause at least that’s somewhere. Now the question is why is Nimrod’s rebirth and Jesus’ birthday during Christmas, and why do Christians celebrate it? The Bible never declares that it must be celebrated. Who, what, when, where, why, and how?!

DECEMBER 25TH

If you’ve read the Bible, you’d know that nowhere does it state that Christ’s birth was on December 25th or indicate it’s near that date. And if you know your astronomy, you’d know that December 25th is normally a few days after the winter solstice, which is on the 20th or 21st of December for the rest of the 21st century (I just learned this), and it is the darkest time of the year. And if you know your history, you’d know that many ancient cultures and religions had celebrations during this time and every ancient mythology was heavily influenced by the celestial sky. One ancient celebration some people know is the Roman festival Saturnalia.

Saturnalia was held between the 17th to the 23rd of December on the Julian calendar to honor the god Saturn. It’s Greek equivalent is the festival Kronia. It was a time of debauchery, and if you were a slave, it was the best time of the year for you, cause your slave status was removed during that time, and you got to party like it was 2019 in a sex club at a casino. But, unfortunately for the slaves, Constantine the Great was born in the late 3rd century, and he became the first Christian emperor. Then Pope Julius I set December 25th as the official birthdate of Jesus in 350 AD. Then Theodosius the Great came into power in the late 4th century and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. After that, some of Saturnalia’s customs were recast into Christmas, but I’m not sure if the orgies and gambling got to stay — oh, and the freedom... who knows. The main question is why did Pope Julius I set Christ’s birth on December 25th?

Before Constantine the Great, there was Aurelian. Emperor Aurelian made Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun) the main divinity of the Roman Pantheon and set his birthdate on December 25th in 274 AD. Hey, that’s Jesus’ birthday! It is only speculation, but it’s possible that the idea was to merge all the pagan religions into one religion. As we know a century later, Theodosius made Christianity the state religion. If all the pagan worshippers were forced to forsake their religion to follow a new one, then there would be revolts all across the empire, so in order to avoid that, the powers that be made a smooth transition that took time. So, why not choose a pagan god to be the main divinity and eventually merge that with the omnipotent Christian God, so people could still practice their pagan religions in peace, but they would eventually converge to one religion. Ruling under one religion, one law, is easier. It seems plausible.

We now know the beginnings of how Christ’s birth was set in stone by the Roman Catholic Church centuries after his death, and his birthdate is the same as Sol Invictus, but now we're left with even more questions. Riding this train is producing lots of pollution! What are the origins of Sol Invictus and how does this deity tie into Nimrod? And what does any of this have to do with Jesus? And, uh — who, what, when, where, why, and how?!?! Let’s turn to the skies and back to Alexander Hislop for some answers.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO BABYLON

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘all roads lead to Rome’, and it came about from Rome’s vast network of roads, and it didn’t matter which way one turned on the road cause you’d probably find your way back to Rome. It’s become a proverb that means there are various ways to reach the same conclusion. And the conclusion of the beginning of civilization started in the land between rivers, Mesopotamia — at least for Hislop.

His idea isn’t far-fetched, since there is a lot of evidence supporting the ancient age of the civilizations in Mesopotamia (you first learned about them in middle school, right?). Also, the evolutionary biology concept of common descent, which refers to the common ancestry of a particular group of organisms barely strengthens his stance, but nonetheless, it does. I mean we all had to come from a common origin, right?

Hislop believed that Semiramis, Nimrod’s wife, said that when Nimrod died, he went up into the heavens to the sun, and the sun became the symbol of Nimrod. The sun’s rays then impregnated her and it was Nimrod reincarnated as the Sun God, but he had a new name, Tammuz. That’s mythology for you. So, Sol Invictus is the great Nimrod of Babylon, the first man to be deified as a god. His birthday is celebrated on the 25th of December, which is shortly after the winter solstice (the longest night of the year), because that’s when the sun comes back to life. It is reborn. The tree is a symbol of his resurrection, and according to the Bible this ritual was happening during Jeremiah’s time.

It’s important to note that the Babylonians were great astronomers. They wrote their stories in the sky and passed their knowledge to the Greeks and Egyptians. We know the Babylonians were the originators of the Zodiac and constellations, since we can find the location of the creators based on the layout of the constellations. “The time and the place, though, ideally match the Babylonians and their Sumerian ancestors who lived in the area we know as Mesopotamia and who, as we have already seen, had a well-developed knowledge of astronomy by 2000 BC. Hence two independent lines of evidence point to the Babylonians and Sumerians as the originators of our constellation system” (Ridpath, ch. 1).

If the Greeks and Egyptians took knowledge of the constellation from the Babylonians, and the constellations were made up of Babylonian myths, then Greek and Egyptian mythology, which is also based on the stories in the sky, are just Babylonian myths retold in different languages.

Unfortunately, I’m left with more questions than answers, and I’ve barely scratched the surface on a topic that has as many layers as the Earth’s crust and atmosphere. But fortunately, this is a series of essays on the Christian holidays, and I may be able to discover more about Christianity as a whole. There is so much more that can be written about this topic with its history spanning almost two millennia, and as we have discovered, possibly many millennia before that. With the passage of time, we tend to forget why we do things. Many random things get added to our holidays like a tree and a large man. We get caught up in gift buying and house decorating to prepare for the holidays and forget the main purpose. We don’t even know its purpose. It becomes meaningless. It becomes uncommon knowledge. But, I don’t have to work, and I still get paid, and that’s the only knowledge I need. Cheers!

This was only a quick glance at the Christmas holiday, and we’ve learned a little about Santa, the Christmas tree, Babylonian mythology, and how Christ finally got his first birthday over 300 years after his death. Yay! Although, we still don’t know his actual birthday or if he’s real. Boo!

Next up is the death and resurrection of Christ, commonly known as Easter. What do jelly beans have to do with it? Stay tuned.

Bibliography

Davis, Richard. “Christmas — Its Origins.” Https://Seedofabraham.Net,

seedofabraham.net/Christmas-Its-Origin.pdf. Accessed 20 Mar. 2021.

Hislop, Alexander. The Two Babylons: Or, the Papal Worship Proved to Be the Worship of Nimrod. Edited by Avram Yehoshua, 7th ed., Scotland, 1871, seedofabraham.net/The-Two-Babylons.pdf.

KJV Holy Bible. England, 1611.

Ridpath, Ian. Star Tales. Expanded, Lutterworth Press, 2018, www.ianridpath.com/startales/contents.html.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Christmas Tree | Tradition, History, & Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/plant/Christmas-tree. Accessed 24 Mar. 2021.

Wikipedia contributors. “Christmas Tree.” Wikipedia, 4 Mar. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree.

Wikipedia contributors . “Santa Claus.” Wikipedia, 6 Mar. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus.