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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Jesus was not born in December. The tree was brought into the house and decorated way before Christians ever laid eyes on it.
Evergreen was brought in during winter because people missed seeing green (still do), it smelled good and to feed the animals. The winter solstice (holiday)  was celebrated during that time. It was also a time to take a break from working the land since it was covered with snow, and rather cook, eat, sing, dance, decorate house, celebrate life and thank whatever god you worshiped if any.
Now Christians came in and suddenly tree became Christmas tree and Jesus was born on 24th or 25th.
I'd get them the tree since it's religious if you make it into one.
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Um.  What Christians believe Jesus was born on December 25?  The feast of Christ / the Jesus holy day / Christmas became part of the liturgical cycle so that his life -- from the anticipation of his arrival to his return to heaven (and the beginning of the new Israel) could be celebrated over the course of a year.[/quote]

+1. [b]A day needed to be chosen because nobody knew Jesus' real birthdate.[/b] So they chose that day. To Christians, what PP is writing isn't old news.

If it helps, we Christians also understand that there was probably no snow around the manger in Bethlehem, even though there are some lovely carols about snow.

Also, wasn't it Queen Victoria's German husband, Albert, who brought the tree custom to Britain about 150 years ago? The tree is lovely, but it doesn't have a specific religious or sacramental role. I'm happy to share it with non-Christians![/quote]

[b]Yes, but most biblical scholars agree that the birthdate was between February and April,[/b] not really near December at all.  The *ONLY* reason that the church [b]moved [/b]it to the current date was to compete directly with the Pagan Winter Solstice celebrations and to try and lure non-believers to the religion.  They also started coopting various symbols of the winter solstice celebrations as a part of their traditions.  That doesn't make them Christian symbols; it makes them shared symbols.  But a Christmas tree is not exclusively a Christian symbol, and in fact, in the US, the Christmas tree is a ubiquitous secular symbol of the winter holidays.[/quote]

Groundhog, you have made this assertion at least a couple of times in the past week.  Please give a cite.  Prevailing consensus is that no one has any knowledge of what month Jesus was born, let alone what year, although there a number of theories pointing almost equally to spring, summer, or fall.

Also, please give cites to evidence that the Church moved the date of celebration.  The first known Christmas celebration occurred  in the fourth century around December 25th--it was not celebrated before that.  Coincidentally (or not so much) Christmas began to be celebrated after Constantine converted to Christianity and sought to spread it over the Roman Empire, which was full of pagans who loved their time of merrymaking around the winter solistice.

There were a number of theologically symbolic reasons to place Christ's birth around the winter solistice, which coincided nicely with a desire to Christianize a popular pagan holiday.  You read this as a cynical maneuver by the early Church.  Others see this as a humanistic accommodation by the Church, which recognized that people have a need for a celebration in the depths of winter when it feels the cold, damp, and short days without light  will never end.

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