Jesus was not born on December 25, he was probably born in autumn and the reason why we celebrate Christmas on this particular day is because the Roman Catholic Church told us to.
Now before you get all indignant and start heading down to the nearest church to badger Father Michael for an explanation, there has been a sensible, practical reason for the date-change. We never really celebrated Christmas whereas the Pagans had spent years and years drinking a lot, having sex and gorging themselves on turkey on December 25 to celebrate Bacchus – a Pagan God.
The Catholic Church was stuck on the sidelines every December 25 and it was starting to get mardy. It thought that Pagans were having way too much fun so introduced Christmas on the same day. It wanted a stop to all this eating and drinking, and suggested we go to Midnight Mass instead. Centuries passed and now Christmas is a now time where we can all gather together, gorge turkey and drink too much. Good job the church intervened then.
I’m pleased the Church hijacked this date and stopped the Pagans in their tracks. If it hadn’t we would have probably had to trek down to some Godforsaken place like Stonehenge or Cerne Abbas on December 25 and I can’t think of anything worse than drinking mead, getting naked with ugly hippies and chanting cobblers for Mother Nature’s pleasure on a cold winter’s day.