December 25th is the day on which one of our best-known and best-loved festivals takes place – Christmas Day; for it celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the Christian religion. The bible tell us that he was born in a stable in Bethlehem, when his parents, Joseph and Mary, could find no room to stay anywhere else in the town.
We can’t be sure that December 25th was the exact date of Jesus’ birthday. Probably priests from the early Christian Church chose this day because it was the time of the midwinter festival, when people celebrated the new light of the sun after the shortest and darkest day of the year.
Some of our Christmas customs come from the Romans. They had a midwinter feast called the Saturnalia at which banquets were held and presents exchanged, and that is how we started to give Christmas presents and enjoy a large Christmas dinner. Other customs are more modern, however Christmas cards became popular only a hundred years ago or so. And at about the same time, families in Britain began to decorate Christmas trees in their homes, copying their German neighbours.
Gilchrist, C (1998) A Calendar of Festivals, Barefoot Books:Bath, p. 54