Why 25th December?

Many believe 25th December to be the actual birthday of Jesus but we don't know the date of his birth. So why do we celebrate Christmas on this date?

The 25th December was the winter solstice on the old Julian calendar. With the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity many pagan festivals were baptised into the Christian calendar which is what may have happened here.

In the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem God has come down to assume our humanity so that we may become imbued with his divinity. We have a Christmas sermon by St Basil(329-379) and another by St Gregory Nazianzus preached in Constantinople in 380. We have the record of a Christmas celebration on 25th December in Alexandria in 432. From around this time the dating of the celebration of the birth of Jesus quickly became widespread and eventually universal.

The feast day of the sun God at the winter solstice is accepted as the most likely pre Christian origin of the date. With the date of Easter determined by other natural phenomena we have the twin pivots around which the rest of the Christian calendar has gradually been developed. What a blessing it is to have the intertwining of a natural cycle and a religious cycle on which to chart the purpose and progress of our lives.

See amid the winter's snows, Christ is born in Bethlehem.