[KeepingItReal]

Originally Posted by KayakerNC

Do you have a problem with Saturnalia, a pagan holiday, being adapted as a Christian celebration?

We can talk more about Christmas in another month or so, right now the thread is about Halloween...the two couldn't be much more different.

Did the Romans Invent Christmas? | History Today

Gwynn concludes: ‘The majority of modern scholars would be reluctant to accept any close connection between the Saturnalia and the emergence of the Christian Christmas.’

Devout Christians will be reassured to learn that the date of Christmas may derive from concepts in Judaism that link the time of the deaths of prophets being linked to their conception or birth. From this, early ecclesiastical number-crunchers extrapolated that the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy following the Annunciation on March 25th would produce a December 25th date for the birth of Christ.