Why is Christ's birth celebrated on December 25th as Christmas?
2000 years ago, birthdays were not particularly recorded. The important day to people then was the date of death. Birth was just a day that got you started in the world.
So nobody really bothered to wonder when Jesus was born. Until, that is, about 200 years later when Christianity was growing throughout the Roman Empire. Then, historians of the day put forward a variety of likely dates: January 1st, January 6th, March 25th and May 20th. This latter date was the favorite because Luke's Gospel mentions that the shepherds who saw the Star of Bethlehem were 'watching their flocks at night.' The only time that shepherds bothered to stay up overnight with their flocks was during lambing season - mid May.
The early Church did nothing about the matter until they realized that they had a problem.
By the end of the 3rd century, another religion was growing in favor. Mithraism, the worship of the sun god Mithras was finding particular support among prominent Romans. It was a religion with many great feasts and celebrations - much enjoyed by the Roman people.
The Christian Church needed a reason to throw a party in a month that they had no existing celebrations and to take the edge off of a time of great feasting for the Mithraians. So in the early 320's they declared that December 25th would be set aside to celebrate the birth of Christ with a special Mass (hence Christ's Mass).
A theologian of the time wrote, "We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of him that made it."
On a more recent and certainly more secular level, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer was almost called Rollo.
He came to exist because a Chicago department store, Montgomery Ward, wanted a promotional leaflet to welcome its Christmas shoppers in 1939.
One of the store's copywriters, Robert May, wrote the poem but got into an argument with the store's executives. They hated his first choice of name, Rollo, and also rejected the second choice - Reginald. Everyone eventually agreed on Rudolph, however, and a artist called Denver Gillen was commissioned to bring him to life.
In 1947, a friend of May, Johnny Marks, put the poem to music but the fledgling song had to wait another two years before Gene Autry took it to the top of the hit parade.
Now, 300 different recording later, it is one of the most successful songs of all time.
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