Why is Christmas day celebrated on the 25th of December?

Answer 1

because the fourth of July is already taken.

Answer 2

Well in contrast to popular belief the 25th is not the day jesus is born! Apparently I heard that the reason Christmas is celebrated on the 25th is to do with the it being close to the shortest day of the year! Because Winter is pretty dark/cold and basically unpleasant Christmas came to be celebrated at this time of the year in order that it gives people something to look forward to and celebrate during the dark cold winter months! It may sound ridiculous but that is what I heard!! So don't attack me anyone if i am wrong - I am merely passing information that I was once told!

Answer 3

Because December the 25th is Christmas day.

Answer 4

Because its a day close to the Winter Solstice. Christmas is an invention of man. No one knows the exact day that Jesus Christ was born. The Winter Solstice was commonly celebrated by pagans all over the world. One of those celebrations was called Yule, which was celebrated by Germanic tribes. Activities like decorating evergreen trees, mistletoe, yule logs, feasting, etc all came from the practices of Pagans.

The Catholic Church purposely made Christmas on December 25th. They were trying to convert these pagans to Christianity, so they incorporated a lot of their belief systems into Christianity to make converting easier.

Answer 5

Approximately 2000 years ago, there was a small group of poor stingy fishermen who could not afford to celebrate all eight days of Chanukah by giving gifts.

As charity is a fundamental principle of Judaism, the other members of the temple nevertheless gave them presents on all eight days even though the fishermen only gave presents on one.

The fishermen, however, felt ashamed and started their own Jewish cult, led by a carpenter called Christian (he used to repair their boats and was considered the brains of the bunch). This new cult of Christian was fundamentally different to mainstream Judaism in three ways:

1. Presents are only given on one day of the year.

2. Unclean spirits are driven into pigs, which are then killed and eaten with the blood.

3. God got told he remembered the creation all wrong, and He actually rested on a Sunday, not a Saturday as He originally thought. (With that kind of insolence, is it any wonder that God has washed his hands of the whole christ mass travesty?).

These followers of Christian were called, not surpridingly, christians.

The problem was now that since they no longer mixed with the temple crowd, the christian Jews only got one eighth of the presents they were used to, so it was suggested to open up the cult to non-Jews. This caused fierce debate and almost caused a splintering of the cult (this was eventually to happen later on), but the greedy ones prevailed, arguing that by relaxing the membership requirements and opening the cult up to the masses they could get a mass of presents, and this haul was hence called the christ mass.

Now, it wasn't long before a Roman emperor realised that by restricting gift giving to one day of the year he could instantly control inflation, and by rolling the Saturnalia festival and the christ mass (of presents) festival into one and restricting feasting and orgies to this one day of the year, there would be a massive increase in productivity and GDP. Pretty soon, christ mass was the official festival of the entire Roman empire and it was decreed that for the absence of any doubt it should be celebrated on Decembr 25th. This way it would be easier for merchants and generals alike to take into account any overtime requirements or staff shortages the festival might bring about.

As the Roman empire spread throughout Europe, the festival also absorbed a psychedelic mushroom festival (hence santa's red and white outfit), and the Yule festival in which people traditionally overindulge on heavy food and the next day pass a nice chunky "Yule log".

Answer 6

The ancients computed that the days stopped getting shorter, and in fact were beginning to get longer. This was very important to them, so they had all sorts of celebrations at that time. They decorated their homes with evergreen boughs and mistletoe.
Evergreen because they believed the Gods favored the tree and let it stay green all winter long, while the other trees lost their leaves. The mistletoe because it's a parasite that lives on the oak. It draws nourishment from the host tree. The ancients said it was suspended between heaven and earth but connected to neither.
The early Christian church had to have a beginning for their hero, so they had him born at the ancient holiday The Return of Light. It was easier to convert them by using their decorations and time of celebration.
Same with Easter. The ancients celebrated The Rebirth with bunnies,chicks, eggs, Spring flowers, etc.
The Christians had Christ resurrected ( REBORN ) at the same time.

Answer 7

Because Jesus was born at midnight on the 24th of December, thus 25th Christmas day!

Answer 8

Because it was the birthday of the sun. The Romans used to celebrate the end of winter on that day and when Christianity "took over" so to say, they simply used the 25th Decemeber as the feast day. It was also a pretty certain way to convert more people!

Answer 9

The reason it is held on December 25Th is because the Christians believed Christ was born on this day. It has never been proved if he was or not. The Jehovah witnesses believe he was born around Easter.

Answer 10

It is the day of Saturnalia, one of the most popular holidays in ancient Rome. Rather than make people give it up, the Church just stuck the birth of Jesus there and called it Christmas so people wouldn't be upset and would join the new religion.

Answer 11

Because before some clever people thought up the idea of pretending that some jewish guru was going to be born, could die then come back to life (what utter rubbish!) there was a pagan festival around the end of the year, so they hijacked it, decided to make it only on one day, and started their own festival.