Christmas trivia.

As has been mentioned in previous years, whatever was the date of Jesus's birth, it almost certainly was not December 25th.  So why do we celebrate it then?  It's all part of a cunning plan by the early Christian church not to alienate people by imposing new ideas on them, but instead to integrate Christian concepts into existing activities.  The point where the days start getting longer again had always traditionally been marked with feasting, prayers and sacrifices to the gods, and the early Christian church simply took this over and gradually associated it with the birth of Jesus.  The Romans called this time Saturnalia, and the Germanic peoples gave it the name Yule.  But whereas Saturnalia has more or less disappeared from public consciousness, Yule has stuck and we still refer to Yuletide, and Yule logs and the like.