December 25th is not really Jesus’s birthday. This is not breaking news. Let’s stop pontificating on when sheep are kept in fields, whether or not it snows in Israel (it does) and making arguments for when his actual birthday is. Christmas has been celebrated on December 25th since A.D. 336, during the reign of Emperor Constantine. He made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Setting that date may have been an effort to weaken established pagan traditions, rather than following them. Hanging wreaths, decorating trees and lighting candles (and by extension strings of lights) have pagan origins. Celebrating the birth of Christ – the incarnation – is uniquely Christian. It’s not about a baby in a manger; it’s about the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. It’s about John the Baptist leaping in his mother’s womb and Mary and Elizabeth being filled the Holy Spirit. It’s about the angel appearing to Joseph and Mary and the faith it took for them to travel to Bethlehem. It’s about angels bringing good tidings of great joy and wise men traveling from afar to worship him. It’s about the deity of God being robed in flesh and walking among us. It’s about the point of contact between heaven and earth. It’s about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the first page of a story that ends at the cross… which for us is only the beginning. So don’t worry about the day. At this point the Julian calendar is off by 13 days and observant Jews probably ignored it anyway.