Christmas Pagan Origins

[DrewATX]

im curious to the Church's official standing on Christmas being celebrated on (and in a similar way) as the pagan holidays that pre-date Christ. i know there is a distinct difference in Church traditions and culture traditions.

i have read some history of Dec 25th, and it took several hundred years for a decision to be made as this being Christs' day of birth. it also seems a little odd to align it exactly with a date celebrating the sun and whatever else they were honoring at the time.

I wonder what Jesus was doing on that day during His life, and what He thought of the celebrations.

here are some links for refernce only, im not endorsing the content.
[url="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2000/dec08.html"]http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2000/dec08.html[/url]
[url="http://www.essortment.com/all/christmaspagan_rece.htm"]http://www.essortment.com/all/christmaspagan_rece.htm[/url]
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas[/url]

[Cam42]

[quote name='DrewATX' timestamp='1294160707' post='2196556']
im curious to the Church's official standing on Christmas being celebrated on (and in a similar way) as the pagan holidays that pre-date Christ. i know there is a distinct difference in Church traditions and culture traditions.

i have read some history of Dec 25th, and it took several hundred years for a decision to be made as this being Christs' day of birth. it also seems a little odd to align it exactly with a date celebrating the sun and whatever else they were honoring at the time.

I wonder what Jesus was doing on that day during His life, and what He thought of the celebrations.

here are some links for refernce only, im not endorsing the content.
[url="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2000/dec08.html"]http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2000/dec08.html[/url]
[url="http://www.essortment.com/all/christmaspagan_rece.htm"]http://www.essortment.com/all/christmaspagan_rece.htm[/url]
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas[/url]
[/quote]

The Christianization of pagan festive days began in roughly the 4th Century A.D. when the Roman Emperor Constantine, converted to Christianity. In order to subjugate pagan Rome, he worked with the Church to start incorporating the pagan festivals into Church feasts, this would then attract pagans and eliminate their festivals, and when the Church absorbed the festivals and adopted the new "Christian" names and identities, this promoted Christianity and solidified Tradition.

On the other side, we don't know just when most dates really were, because the caledars were so different. So, in order to make the year even for feasts, the Church, in her wisdom assigned the dates to what was most likely the closest happening. So, while Christ might not have been born on Dec. 25, we can be fairly certain that it was close to what we now know as Dec. 25.

Bottom line, it doesn't really matter what the actual day was, but rather that we show respect and that we worship in a Catholic way on those days as a commemoration of the happenings in the Life of Christ and the life of the early Church.