Firstly, let me clarify that I don;t consider myself an expert in the arena of Christianity. I merely write I believe in and practice.

Jack Alexander is correct in pointing out that Christmas supplanted a pagan festival. When a festival is celebrated is not a important matter. What’s more important is why do we celebrate Christmas? The answer is simple, because we rejoice that God came down to save us from oppression. Of course God’s work is completed yet until the final victory over Satan and sin.

When Jesus was born is historically unknown. That Jesus was born during winter was popularized in the Christmas Carol, The First Noel. Again it doesn’t matter when Jesus was born. The Bible definitely fix the time. Read it to confirm it yourself.

The celebration of Easter coincides more with the Passover as that’s when the events of the Passion of the Christ took place. So it’s not merely the Church decided that to replace a pagan fertility festival. Remember that the Jews practiced Passover at the same time and it has nothing to any fertility feast although it celebrates freedom from slavery just as Easter does.

We should challenge us and consider why popular pagan festivals can be overridden by the Church when it wasn’t yet popular? What made the Church more popular? Did the Church promise more worldly fortune as did the pagan religions? Definitely not as Christianity promises a more difficult and challenging way of life. This is something definitely not popular!

If Jesus was a myth, ask yourself why did thousands if not millions of people die for this belief. People don’t defend myths with their lives. Pick up any book on the Saints and you shall learn what many of them sacrificed their lives or wealth or ego to defend their faith.

Luke 2:7-8
7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

Shepherds don’t stay in the fields watching their flock at night in December. They do this in the Spring when the weather is amenable and lambs are being born so that they can protect them from predators.

This would also be one of the reasons Jesus is also called the lamb of God… he was born in the Spring.

The December 25th date was chosen by the early church some 400 years after the fact because the Saturnalia festival was so popular. By co-opting the festival and attaching it to the birth of Christ the early church hoped to convert more people.

Same thing goes for Easter. It’s a pagan fertility festival attached to the lunar cycle. It has nothing to do with the death and resurrection.