When you gather around the Christmas tree or stuff goodies into a stocking, you're taking part in traditions that stretch back thousands of years — long before Christianity entered the mix.

Pagan, or non-Christian, traditions show up in this beloved winter holiday, a consequence of early church leaders melding Jesus' nativity celebration with pre-existing midwinter festivals. Since then, Christmas traditions have warped over time, arriving at their current state a little more than a century ago.

Read on for some of the surprising origins of Christmas cheer, and find out why Christmas was once banned in New England.

1. Early Christians had a soft spot for pagans

It's a mistake to say that our modern Christmas traditions come directly from pre-Christian paganism, said Ronald Hutton, a historian at Bristol University in the United Kingdom. However, he said, you'd be equally wrong to believe that Christmas is a modern phenomenon. As Christians spread their religion into Europe in the first centuries A.D., they ran into people living by a variety of local and regional religious creeds.

Christian missionaries lumped all of these people together under the umbrella term "pagan," said Philip Shaw, who researches early Germanic languages and Old English at Leicester University in the U.K. The term is related to the Latin word meaning "field," Shaw told LiveScience. The lingual link makes sense, he said, because early European Christianity was an urban phenomenon, while paganism persisted longer in rustic areas.

Early Christians wanted to convert pagans, Shaw said, but they were also fascinated by their traditions.

"Christians of that period are quite interested in paganism," he said. "It's obviously something they think is a bad thing, but it's also something they think is worth remembering. It's what their ancestors did." [In Photos: Early Christian Rome]

Perhaps that's why pagan traditions remained even as Christianity took hold. 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 midwinter. The modern Santa Claus is a direct descendent of England's Father Christmas, who was not originally a gift-giver. However, Father Christmas and his other European variations are modern incarnations of old pagan ideas about spirits who traveled the sky in midwinter, Hutton said.

2. We all want that warm Christmas glow

But why this fixation on partying in midwinter, anyway? According to historians, it's a natural time for a feast. In an agricultural society, the harvest work is done for the year, and there's nothing left to be done in the fields.

"It's a time when you have some time to devote to your religious life," said Shaw. "But also it's a period when, frankly, everyone needs cheering up."

The dark days that culminate with the shortest day of the year ­— the winter solstice — could be lightened with feasts and decorations, Hutton said.

"If you happen to live in a region in which midwinter brings striking darkness and cold and hunger, then the urge to have a celebration at the very heart of it to avoid going mad or falling into deep depression is very, very strong," he said.

Stephen Nissenbaum, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist "The Battle for Christmas" (Vintage, 1997), agreed.

"Even now when solstice means not all that much because you can get rid of the darkness with the flick of an electric light switch, even now, it's a very powerful season," he told LIveScience.

3. The Church was slow to embrace Christmas

Despite the spread of Christianity, midwinter festivals did not become Christmas for hundreds of years. The Bible gives no reference to when Jesus was born, which wasn't a problem for early Christians, Nissenbaum said.

"It never occurred to them that they needed to celebrate his birthday," he said.

With no Biblical directive to do so and no mention in the Gospels of the correct date, it wasn't until the fourth century that church leaders in Rome embraced the holiday. At this time, Nissenbaum said, many people had turned to a belief the Church found heretical: That Jesus had never existed as a man, but as a sort of spiritual entity.

"If you want to show that Jesus was a real human being just like every other human being, not just somebody who appeared like a hologram, then what better way to think of him being born in a normal, humble human way than to celebrate his birth?" Nissenbaum said. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]

Midwinter festivals, with their pagan roots, were already widely celebrated, Nissenbaum said. And the date had a pleasing philosophical fit with festivals celebrating the lengthening days after the winter solstice (which fell on Dec. 21 this year). "O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born … Christ should be born," one Cyprian text read.

4. The Puritans hated the holiday

But if the Catholic Church gradually came to embrace Christmas, the Protestant Reformation gave the holiday a good knock on the chin. In the 16th century, Christmas became a casualty of this church schism, with reformist-minded Protestants considering it little better than paganism, Nissenbaum said. This likely had something to do with the "raucous, rowdy and sometimes bawdy fashion" in which Christmas was celebrated, he added.

In England under Oliver Cromwell, Christmas and other saints' days were banned, and in New England it was illegal to celebrate Christmas for about 25 years in the 1600s, Nissenbaum said. Forget people saying, "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," he said.

"If you want to look at a real 'War on Christmas,' you've got to look at the Puritans," he said. "They banned it!"

Shepherds? But I thought it was three wise men.

It is comforting to see that more and more influential people are turning away from kissing christianity's miserable arse.

This is one of the few things this president has gotten right.

But the true meaning of Christmas remains, as Linus explained to Charlie Brown, and it CAN NOT be snuffed out:

“And the angel said unto them, fear not! For behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord! ~ Gospel of Luke, Ch 2

All people. All people hear about this, but some, like Obama, count it naught, and desecrate it.

Will you always do likewise?

What you fail to understand is that in your blind ignorance you and the masses of the globe who are turning from God, Jesus Christ..are fulfilling prophesy of the great apostasy to occur in the end times.

Much like the Pharisees, Sadducees, & Romans they too rejected Christ not realizing that they were being used of God to bring salvation to all man kind who would belief in Him, turning from themselves & sin. They ultimately crucified Him, thinking they had won they didnt realize that they had fulfilled God's plan to the tee...down to every little detail like not breaking any of His bones. This is extremely important to note because Romans regularly broke the knees of all those crucified. The didnt do so with Christ because God fulfilled His prophesy. Here we see the extreme accuracy of God and His Word.

America, since it's founding, has been a Christian nation. Since the early 1900's America has been slowly turning from God. As of recently this has progressed. The apostasy in America is huge. What you and others are doing is simply fulfilling prophesy. Unfortunately for you and the masses the end of apostasy in destruction. Hopefully you will see and turn to God. Dont worry there are plenty to take your place in the apostasy should you heed the call of God in your life.

By the way...I dont have time to educate people who claim we were not a Christian Nation....That is a lie from Hell and I wont engage.

The meaning of Christmas is just rehashed mythology on December 25th.

The Christmas trees is Pagan.
The Yule log is Pagan.
Mistletoe is Pagan.
Santa Clause is a Pagan symbol

December 25 is for the Pagan winter solstice celebration

And some might say that you are unwise, for turning your back on the only way to real Life.

Your life is about religious delusions and fantasy. It's not just not real. It's a mental disorder. You're incapable of rational thinking. Religious delusions are real to you just as you believe psychotic hallucinations are real to you. When mentally ill people hallucinate hearing Jesus speaking to them you think it's real. You worship mental disorder.

Walt,
You have an obsessive compulsive disorder on ancient superstition which has no basis in reality and you have an obsession with unqualified religious loons pretending to do science. You have several mental disorders. You can't live a real and authentic life without professional help.

Quote from walt


It does not matter as the catholic church is the one who declared Dec 25th as Christs birthday that you are defending. And it is a lie!
One of many lies that is the foundation christianity is built upon.
Your bible is as full of holes as a sieve.

Why then do you insist on continuing to celebrate Jesus' birth on December 25. You are living a lie ..... celebrating instead ..... the pagan winter solstice.

If you know that the birth of Jesus was not on what is now called Christmas ..... why would you start a thread like this? How can christ be taken out of Christmas ..... when christ was never part to this holiday?

None of your post make sense Walt ..... you need professional help.

Peace

So, what do you want, a medal or a chest to pin it on?

Today, at the Comm. Center monthly meeting everybody recited the P O A and sang "God Bless America". I did too but I didn't say "under God" or "God Bless America". LOL, people looked at me with horror in their eyes

Walt replied:
So, what do you want, a medal or a chest to pin it on?