Christmas Was Not a Pagan Holiday： How To Shut Down Family Idiot Arguing Otherwise
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 1 minute
Words per Minute
170.03429
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the pernicious myth that many Christian celebrations around Christmas came or are descended from pagan celebrations. We discuss the origins of the Christmas tree, Sol Invictus, Yule, and Santa Claus, and how they all came about.
Transcript
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the earliest evidence for Christians marking December 25th as Jesus's birthday
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predates the earliest evidence of a Sol Invictus festival on that date.
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And keep in mind, the earliest evidence and the only evidence of a Sol Invictus holiday on that
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date was written by Christians. So it would have been practiced around Christian communities
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that were already practicing a celebration tied to Jesus's birth on that day.
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Wow. Yeah. It was to say that, yeah, it wasn't because of Christmas.
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My life has been a lie. God is dead. The government's lame. Thanksgiving is about
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killing Indians. Jesus wasn't born on Christmas. They moved the date. It was a pagan holiday.
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Santa Claus was a saint festival that was moved to correspond with Jesus's birthday.
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It was not that Jesus's birthday was moved to correspond with a pagan celebration.
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It was an already totally Christian saints festival was moved to correspond with a totally
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Christian Jesus's birthday as calculated by early church leaders.
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Right. And it's just some religious musical chairs, but all within the faith.
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Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing
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the pernicious myth that many Christian celebrations around Christmas came or are descended from pagan
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celebrations. What? Oh, they are not? I thought they always were. Yeah, you must have heard this
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growing up where people are like, oh, this came from a pagan celebration. This came from a pagan
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celebration. And in almost every case, there not only is literally zero strong evidence that they
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are, there is very strong evidence they did not. And there is actually also evidence in a number of
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cases that some celebrations that they're like, yeah, but pagans did practice this. And you're like,
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yeah. And they started about 200 years after Christians did.
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What? This is crazy. Every year I get in the Christmas spirit and I watch a ton of videos
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on the history of Christmas and the pagan origins of Christmas. And you're subverting that all right
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now? Yeah, hold on. I couldn't subvert this on so many levels. So the specific ones that we're
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going to be addressing are, is Christmas copied from Sol Invictus celebration or did it get its date
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from a Sol Invictus celebration or Saturnalia or Saturnalia? We're also going to be discussing
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Saturnalia separately. Okay. And is the Christmas tree pagan? Specifically, we'll be arguing in the
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case of Christmas tree that the tradition of the Christmas tree is not ancient. It's not derived
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from Saturnalia, Yule or Norse mythology. And then finally, we will touch briefly on Santa Claus
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being Christian. But we're going to hit this from a really weird angle because what may surprise you
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is I thought that all of this propaganda about this stuff not being Christian in origin came from
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the modern new age pagan like counterculture movement. Oh yeah. Like I'm a Wiccan or I like my
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Druid ceremony and I want to feel like I'm being, I'm doing the real Christmas. Yeah. I'm doing the real
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Christmas. Turned out it didn't come from me. What? So, well, but, well, hold on, hold on.
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Simone, obviously, can you guess who it came from? This whole Christmas. I'll give you a clue.
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They're one of our ancestral groups. Oh, the, not the Puritan. Yeah. The Puritans in the 16th and 17th
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century. Because they were trying to be like, well, you don't want to celebrate Christmas because that's
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some like pure, that's some like a pagan nonsense. That's actually Massachusetts outlawed the
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celebration of Christian for 22 years. Yeah. Yeah. That, that I understood. I knew that,
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that Puritans were all, we don't do Christmas. What I would say is they were not crazy not to,
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to see it as pagan either. So think about it from a Puritan perspective. Okay. You have like many
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people today where they're like, wait, like when, when COVID happened and everything like that,
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they were like, wait, the government's been gaslighting me for a long time. Like they're
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just been lying to me about stuff. Like I doubt everything. And then they went into like QAnon's
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viral conspiracy theory mode. Yeah. With the Puritans, you know, the, the, the Bible was being
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printed. They were like, Hey, this doesn't align with what the Catholic church says, you know,
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let's look to the Bible for what is Christian. And you look in the Bible and they're like,
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this Christmas stuff is not in here. The tree's not here. The Santa Claus guy is not here. This
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and so they're then like, okay, where did it all come from? It must be pagan. And I'd also put this
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in the context of some line in the Bible that would make them especially suspicious. So if you look at
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something like Jeremiah 10, one through five, it says, hear what the Lord says to you, people of
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Israel. This is what the Lord says. Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs
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in the heavens. So the nations are terrified by them for the practice of that. The people are
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worthless. They cut a tree out of the forest and a craftsman shapes. It was this chisel. They adorn
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it with silver and gold. They fasten it with hammer and nails. So it will not totter like a scarecrow in
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a cucumber field. Sorry. They must be carried because they cannot walk. They do not fear them.
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They do not harm them, nor can they do any good. Now, note here, people often shorten this. So if
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you just hear it like that, you're like, that doesn't sound too much like a Christmas tree.
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Well, let's take out about half the words. Yeah. Okay. Especially the way that the nations.
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All right. Yeah. For the practices of the people are worthless. They cut a tree out of the forest.
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They adorn it with silver and gold. And then people are like, that sounds like a Christmas tree.
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Yeah. Okay. But if that's your context, you're like, okay, clearly this isn't a Christmas tree.
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They're talking about the creation of idols that people used to assign special powers to. Nobody really
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assigns powers to a Christmas tree. Like nobody thinks like the Christmas tree is generating the
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presence. So largely what we're going to find in this explanation as I go through things is that
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every one of these practices around Christmas is something that likely developed after the time
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of Christ, but within the Christian communities without much external pagan influence. And where it
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does look like there's pagan influence. That's just a convergent adoption of an important time,
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i.e. the winter solstice. There would be a reason for pagans to have celebrations around the winter
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solstice. And there would be a separate reason for Christians to have celebrations around the winter
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solstice. Yeah. But let's go into this. All right. Anything you want to get into before I go further?
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No, I'm intrigued. Because you had always heard and you believe that this is pagan stuff because it
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makes it, it like looks pagan, right? Like, yep. I don't know. All right. It's all sort of,
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you know, nature and darkness and bringing light. And there's nothing inherently about Jesus being
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born in there. So it seems intuitive. The argument that Christians chose to celebrate Christmas on
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December 25th to compete with or co-opt the popular pagan festival of Sol Invictus is not supported by
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strong evidence. Sol Invictus was a relatively minor deity until the 3rd century CE. Unlike major Roman
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deities like Jupiter or Apollo, Sol Invictus lacked the widespread recognition and dedicated cultic practices
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that would usually accompany a popular deity. This lack of widespread importance calls into question
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the theory that Christians felt particularly threatened by Sol Invictus. December 25th was
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not a longstanding or particularly important festival day for Sol Invictus. The earliest evidence of a
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December 25th festival dedicated to Sol Invictus is found in the Calendar of 354, a Christian document
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composed 80 years after Emperor Arulean, who is often credited with popularizing the sun god, instituted a
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festival in honor of Sol Invictus. The Calendar of 354 is also our only source mentioning December 25th
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as the birthday of Sol Invictus. The problem here being is that the Calendar of 355 also mentions
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two other Sol Invictus festivals that were likely, given the evidence we have, more important than the
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December 25th festival. Specifically, a multi-day festival celebrated from October 19th to 22nd
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and a festival for the sun and moon on August 28th. The Luddite Solus festival even involved a greater
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number of chariot races than the December 25th festival, 36 compared to 30. This makes it look
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very unlikely with the... So, just a little bit of background for people who don't know. There was this
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Roman emperor who really liked to cross-dress, and he came up with the idea of combining all of the gods
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into one god, and he called this god Sol Invictus. This happened after Christ, but still pretty early
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in the Christian tradition, in a way that it really paved the way for the Roman Empire to accept
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Christianity and a singular god, but it was still very Roman-y in nature, and this is the Sol Invictus.
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And one of our daughters actually has a name that was partially inspired by this, her child,
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Lincoln-Fix Collins. But to go further here, and so some people are like, oh, well, Rome had this god
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that was a one god that was a sun god, and so we'll say that Christians just borrowed that date.
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But in a second, we'll get to some really major problems for this.
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So, now you might be asking, okay, well, if they weren't choosing the date because of,
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you know, the Sol Invictus celebration, why might they have been choosing the date, right?
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It's more likely that Christians selected December 25th as a date for Christmas because early Christian
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chronographers were attempting to calculate the key moments of Jesus' life. This is known as
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calculation theory. These chronographers were likely motivated by a desire to align dates of
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important events in Jesus' life with dates of the winter solstice, December 25th, and the
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vernal equinox, March 25th, because of their poetic and cosmic symbolism. However, now you could say,
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am I saying that they just completely got these dates wrong? Probably not, because December 25th was
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not the only widely accepted date for Jesus' birth. Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire celebrated
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Christmas on January 6th, a date that did not correspond with either the winter solstice
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or a pagan holiday. So, what is my guess? My guess is that the correct date for Jesus' birth is likely
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January 6th, because there is no other reason to have chosen that date, and it is very close to the
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December 25th date. So, what likely happened is when they were trying to calculate things, because they
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knew it happened around this time, and the winter solstice was also around this time, it was just easier to
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synchronize them. Right, because everyone kind of was running on slightly different calendars, and the
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calendars kept changing, so it's easier to go by either lunar cycles, which more Jewish traditions seem
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to be based around, or around just, how long are the days? And then that seems a lot easier. Yeah, so
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it's not, what about all this conjecture that Jesus was probably born around the spring, because there
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were shepherds out, and all these other things. The problem here being that sheep are, in fact, grazed
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in the winter, especially in temperate climates like Bethlehem would have been at that time. As you can see
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on midi-modern shepherding websites, like the ones I have in the background here, this is an argument
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made up by people who simply do not have experience shepherding, and so they, you know, create conjecture.
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When do I think sheep would most likely be grazing? But it gets worse from there. Remember how she
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said, oh, and the other evidence? Well, if you look at the other evidence for a spring birth, it is
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really, really bad. Specifically, it is John the Baptist's birth. The Gospel of Luke provides
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information about the conception of John the Baptist, which can be used to estimate Jesus' birth by
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calculating from the time of Zacharias' temple service around June, and adding nine months for
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Elizabeth's pregnancy. John's births would be around March, since Jesus was conceived when Elizabeth
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was six months pregnant. This would place Jesus' births in the fall or possibly early spring. Oh, but also
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possibly in December. So, what? No, that's terrible evidence. Passover symbolism? I do not think that
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that's good evidence. That's just symbolic evidence. Astronomical evidence? Some researchers have suggested
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that the star that guided the Magi might have been a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which occurred in
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7 BC, which could be used to argue for a spring birth. Again, very bad evidence. So, there just is
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really no strong evidence here, and this is something that's pretty much made up whole cloth by individuals
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who want to find ways to smear traditional Christian beliefs. Okay. But I can say, to me, it's suspicious
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that the date that had no backing and no reason to choose it was so close to the 25th date.
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That just seems really weird to me. It's only, like, a couple weeks apart. Now, I'd also note spring
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doesn't seem likely to me for another reason. Okay. They were desperately looking for shelter.
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Why would they be desperately looking for shelter in spring when you could just camp outside?
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That's fair. Yeah. Especially if shelter meant slumming it with a very crowded family or with
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animals. Yeah. Because that leads to disease risk. Yeah. It probably means that you're cold.
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And also, it would make more sense if there was a census taking place that, especially if it was over a
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shorter term period of time, you'd probably do it around the winter when people are less mobile.
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Although, all right. So, to continue here. Although the census is denied by historic Christian
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scholars. Oh, really? Or the historic Jesus scholars. Okay. Now, this is, I don't know what
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to believe on this. I'll go deeper into it when we go into that in one of our tracks. I would need to
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see what the Bible actually says. I need to see the different ways it can be interpreted. I need to see
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where they're getting things wrong. But generally, I find that the Bible seems to be more logical than I
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thought it was every time I go back and read it, which is like the core thing of our reading of the
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Bible stuff. This is another one of those times where I decided to check the Bible to see if the
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Bible said the crazy thing that everyone believes that the Bible says or it says something else. And
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surprise, surprise, the Bible says something else. The only book in the entire Bible that is even
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purported to argue that there was a census that required people to return to their ancestral homes
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is Luke. The problem is, is Luke doesn't actually say that. What Luke does say is,
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and everyone went to their own town to register, so Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in
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Galilee to Judea to Bethlehem to the town of David because he belonged to the house and line of David.
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It doesn't state that they had to go to their ancestral homes. It states that they had to go to
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their own town. This could be thought of more like, you have to go to the town where you have your
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state ID. Like he hadn't gotten a new ID for his new town. I don't think it's exactly like that,
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but what I mean is it's more implied that you had to go to the town where you were personally registered,
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not the town of your ancestors, which makes so much more sense. And it makes a case for a Christmas birth
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way more likely. A census that required everyone in the Roman kingdom to go back to their ancestral homes
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would be incredibly disruptive to have implemented, and it's something we should see mentioned in other
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sources because it's an absolutely zany thing to do. To say everyone who has ever moved in their life
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has to go back to wherever their ancestors are from? Like, why would you even do that, right?
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Now, that this zany idea for how the census was carried out is the way the census was actually
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carried out is a core part of the argument that Jesus wasn't born in December. Because if everyone
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was required to return to their ancestral homes, well then, you wouldn't want to do that during the
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cold months. That would be even crazier to do. So they say, oh, this was done during warm, easy-to-travel
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months. However, if the census was not issued in this way, and if the census was issued in a way
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where it was just a normal census, you would absolutely want to do it in December because
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that's when people would be in their homes and less likely to be traveling, which would make it
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much more easy to get accurate statistics. So just to give a bit more on how they likely got to this
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date, some early Christians believed that Jesus was conceived and died on the same day, March 25th.
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Evidence for this can be found in the statue base of the Christian priest Hippolotius dating from
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222 and 235 CE. Hippolotius's quote-unquote spreadsheet shows his calculations for the
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date of Jesus's crucifixion, which he believed occurred on March 25th. This belief in a combination
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with a traditional nine-month gestation period led them to calculate December 25th as Jesus's
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birthday. Now, here you may know something like, none of this is anti-biblical. The Bible doesn't
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say explicitly the day that Jesus was born. No, the Bible's surprisingly vague on so many things
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that culturally are implied to be so explicit, which really annoys me. Right, and we have early
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Christians, like right here in this document, attempting to calculate it. They're giving us,
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in something, you know, 200 years after Jesus died, so fairly early in Christian tradition,
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we can see Christian scholars going down and trying to do the math to determine when Christ was born and
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when he died. So they're not like even lying to us. They're not even saying like, oh, this was passed
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down in oral tradition or something like that. They're like, okay, here we are trying to run the
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math and we're giving that math to you so you know how we got these dates. These are not sacred dates.
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Now, here is where it gets really, really bad for the pagan argument, and it basically to be
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completely blows it out of the water. The earliest evidence for Christians marking December 25th as
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Jesus's birthday actually predates the earliest evidence of a Sol Invictus festival on that date.
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Again, and keep in mind, the earliest evidence and the only evidence of a Sol Invictus holiday on
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that date was written by Christians. So it would have been practiced around Christian communities
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that were already practicing a celebration tied to Jesus's birth on that day.
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Oh, wow. Yeah, who's to say that? Yeah, it wasn't because of Christmas, not the other way around.
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The evidence can be found at the statue base of Hippolytus, which dates back to the early third
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century, decades before Emperor Arulyan inaugurated a Sol Invictus festival on December 25th.
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December 25th was Jesus's birthday before Sol Invictus existed as an important deity. They might
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have existed as like a weird cult deity, but he was not really important until Emperor Agabala and then
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later Emperor Arulyan brought him into the spotlight and like adopted him as like his personal fault.
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So that completely blows, like any possibility of that out of the water for me.
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Just to lay this all out, so there's no doubt, Sol Invictus was not really enshrined as a Roman deity
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until Elagabalus enshrined him as a Roman deity in 219 CE. So 200 years after Jesus and the Christian
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community had started to be established. Sol Invictus is a much younger deity than Christ and a much
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younger religion than Christianity. But it gets worse because you could be like, yes, but when Elagabalus
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was creating the Sol Invictus deity, didn't he combine a Syrian deity named Elagabala with the Roman
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deities Jupiter and Sol? And I would say yes. And then they'd be like, okay, but did this Syrian
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deity have any celebrations surrounding it in winter? No, it didn't. In fact, the primary celebration of
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Elagabala, the predecessor to Sol Invictus was a summer festival, not a winter festival, a summer festival.
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But no, here people will be like, oh, but what about the solar imagery around Sol Invictus?
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Really bad argument, again, if you look at convergent evolution, because nobody says the solar energy
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around Christian gods and Jesus and stuff like that came from...
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Sorry, wasn't that... The pharaoh was Akhenaten. I can't remember the name of the...
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Oh, yeah. The solo god in Egypt, when that one pharaoh was like very similar to the Sol Invictus
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thing, when he's like, hey, new god, everyone, we're going for monotheism.
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Yeah. And we're going to change the style of all the statues, which I don't imagine Egyptians
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are cool with because they're like, no, no, no, everything's going to be the same forever
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So interestingly, it seems that most monotheistic traditions, even Zoroastrians, for example,
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associated with fire. Associate God with heat warps in the sun. As to why this would happen?
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Well, the sun's sort of the biggest thing in the sky. It's a source of light for all humans
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and all things on earth. Everything dies without it. It's not a bad metaphor. And also here you have
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a problem, which is that Christians were using the sun as a metaphor for Jesus before Sol Invictus
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existed or was made popular by this emperor. So again, very difficult argument to make.
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I think here, before we go further, a lot of the confusion around this stuff that people
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get to is they hear Christianity came after paganism. What they don't keep in mind is that
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paganism was ever evolving. So whenever they see a correlation in pagan traditions and Christian
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traditions, they assume it went from pagan to Christian instead of from Christian to pagan
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because they forget how old Christianity was and how much the pagan traditions evolved.
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Well, yeah. And your point that all these, for example, druidic traditions that people
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We got to do a whole episode on just how fictional Wiccanism is. And it's a completely fictional,
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made up religion. It was made up by a few crazy people in like the, what was it like
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late 1920s? And all the receipts are there. It is, it is entirely fictional. And what they're
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actually worshiping is a bunch of people who practice this child sacrifice. And we can also
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get into that because the, the pagans, like the druids and stuff like that, they sacrificed,
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Well, then isn't it kind of nice that they're remaking it?
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I'm glad. Well, we don't know. I mean, look at the, uh, look, look, but yes, there have
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been taking place among modern anyway, Saturnalia.
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Saturnalia, the Roman festival of the God Saturn took place between December 17th and 23rd.
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The exact lengths of the festival varied throughout its history. So first of all, it was not long
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December 25th. So, okay. Saturnalia was known for its characteristic feasting, gambling, drinking,
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and perhaps most notably the role reversal between slaves and their owners. This role reversal
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involved enslaved people dining with their owners, being waited on by them, and even being allowed to
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speak freely to them without fear of punishment. The origins of Saturnalia are unknown, but some
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Romans believed it hearkened back to a mythological golden age when Saturn ruled Italy and slavery was
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non-existent. Roman authors such as Justin and Markobius described this period as a time of great
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equality where social hierarchies did not exist. Historians have proposed that Saturnalia may have
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ironically served to reinforce the institution of slavery rather than challenge it by offering a
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temporary and controlled outlet for social tension. Saturnalia may have helped to maintain the
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existing power structure of Roman society. There is no evidence that the Romans decorated evergreen
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branches or trees as part of their Saturnalia celebrations. This argument is based on a lack
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of evidence. No Roman sources make any mention of such decorations in the context of Saturnalia. This
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counts date on the popular claim. Now, basically, there is literally no evidence, no suggestion of
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evidence that Saturnalia in any way was influential in why Christians chose this date for the Christmas
00:25:40.880
celebrations. And the celebrations themselves are almost completely unrelated to each other in form,
00:25:47.540
in structure, in practice, and they're not even on the same dates. It's reaching in the extreme.
00:25:57.040
Wow. Yeah, that's, they make it seem so close, but yeah, okay, wow. Like maybe there was like a gift
00:26:05.580
exchange celebration, or maybe there was a, no, none of that stuff. And not the same dates. So yeah,
00:26:14.900
it's just an incredibly weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak. And I also note here that these, a lot of the
00:26:22.120
research I've done for this, why I had added to it, came from a series of videos by Religion for
00:26:27.240
Breakfast. I think one of the best YouTubers, religious YouTubers out there, if you are interested
00:26:33.280
in watching more of his videos, I would strongly recommend it. He's a great guy. I think we
00:26:37.320
actually had planned on doing like a collab project with him at one point until he maybe looked us up
00:26:41.480
and found out how controversial we are. Because he's very non-controversial, very Townsendby. But
00:26:46.180
he's also very not pro-traditional Christian. So if you watch his videos, he is a historical Jesus type
00:26:54.020
guy in terms of like scholarship, which means that if he is arguing for these things, he's not arguing
00:27:00.260
for them to make Christianity look better. He's arguing for them because he believes them.
00:27:06.720
He doesn't like, I just think that that's important to know. Like this is coming from a source that would
00:27:10.960
have every reason if there was any lacking evidence to say, yeah, the pagans did it first. And he
00:27:17.160
doesn't. I love that. No. Any thoughts before I go further? No. Keep going. This is so interesting.
00:27:25.300
The earliest evidence for decorating an evergreen tree for Christmas is found in the upper
00:27:32.100
Rhine regions of Ascalance and Balden during the 14th century. Forestry regulations-
00:27:41.720
Fuck. I'm sorry. That is amazing. Okay. Carry on.
00:27:45.840
Regulations from this period and region, specifically from cities like Sunfin and Behem,
00:27:51.040
indicate that peasants were collecting wood from evergreen forests around Christmas time.
00:27:56.440
Now, here I would note, he actually goes into this a lot more in his video where he's going
00:28:01.020
over this. Basically, you get these regulations where they're like complaining that peasants are
00:28:05.040
going out and collecting trees around this time.
00:28:07.120
Oh, look at these darned. The peasant menace is at it again.
00:28:13.720
We need regulations. You're going to get fined if you go take trees.
00:28:42.340
So, clearly, this is not tied to the writing of the Bible or the time of Christ or anything
00:28:46.940
like that. But this is also a solidly Christian region at that point.
00:28:52.760
There was not like a big lingering pagan population in these parts of the Rhine in the 14th century.
00:29:01.840
This was a 100% Christian population. There was no pagan oral tradition in the background
00:29:17.340
For more color here, the Frisians, which were the last pagan tribe in the Rhine Delta,
00:29:26.940
So, that means that this area had been 100% Christian for around 500 years when the Christmas
00:29:35.840
tree entered the population. There was not a lingering pagan sentiment in this region,
00:29:44.880
And if this was a pagan tradition in the region, then why don't we see it practiced in any pagan
00:29:50.020
writings or any mention of it? And why did they only start complaining about this in terms of the
00:29:55.620
laws in the 14th century? That doesn't make sense.
00:29:59.240
Well, yeah. And since when did, like, pagan traditions own all floral arrangements and tree
00:30:05.440
arrangements? Like, these are the decoration materials we have at hand. You know, why do
00:30:10.660
pagans get to, like, own anything that is organic in nature from a decorative standpoint?
00:30:17.740
Well, yeah. And keep in mind, they cut the trees down. Like, they were not, like...
00:30:24.900
One of the things I've heard about Christmas is you put a tree corpse in your house.
00:30:28.420
This is not a pagan celebration, okay? It doesn't... There's just no... Like,
00:30:32.740
this is just, like, insane to me. Like, that anyone could argue this with this evidence on hand.
00:30:37.720
But we'll get into the development of it really quickly here.
00:30:40.960
Well, direct evidence for a decorated Christmas tree appears in the 15th century,
00:30:45.780
with the earliest reference dating back to 1419 in the city of Breitberg.
00:30:55.800
Yeah. They reported a tree decorated with apples, wafers, gingerbread, and tinsel in a local hospital.
00:31:02.560
This is the earliest documented instance of a decorated tree,
00:31:06.640
though the German word used to describe it could also be used to describe a decorated pole.
00:31:16.300
Here, I guess you could argue some sort of maypole continuity, but that doesn't really check for me,
00:31:28.220
And I'd also note here that tinsel, interestingly,
00:31:31.460
Wikipedia says it wasn't documented to be invented until 1610,
00:31:36.060
when it was originally made of shredded silver to look like icicles.
00:31:44.680
You as a modern person, you know, you hear in the 1419s,
00:31:47.720
a tree at a local hospital decorated with apples, wafers, gingerbread, and tinsel.
00:31:53.360
The tinsel might not have been that much more expensive than, like, the apples, for example.
00:31:59.600
Like, fruit, and especially leaving it in a place where it could potentially decompose.
00:32:03.320
Yeah, not hidden under a frozen lake or something.
00:32:19.180
Well, I think it's a sign of abundance is what it was meant to.
00:32:23.060
It's just, I don't know, it seems a little mean.
00:32:27.780
Getting popularity with decorations for public spaces, often sponsored by guilds, before becoming a tradition in private homes.
00:32:34.360
Evidence for this can be found in the records from Tallinn, Estonia, and Latvia, where Christmas trees were set up in public spaces and sponsored by merchant guilds.
00:32:43.440
Private Christmas trees don't appear in the historical record until the 16th century.
00:32:49.820
So, like, this whole issue of, for example, gay pride parades going to corporate, you know, the gay pride parade brought to you by Bank of America.
00:33:03.180
Well, I don't know, because keep in mind, the very first thing was about peasants taking these and putting them in their houses.
00:33:09.560
We just know that they needed laws to stop peasants from cutting down trees.
00:33:14.920
But at least the tradition of things going corporate eventually is.
00:33:19.540
Well, when they went corporate, they immediately started decorating them.
00:33:22.460
And keep in mind that it was in the same region.
00:33:26.940
If people are like, oh, this regulation around cutting down trees and putting it in your house, like, what evidence do you have that that's in any way tied to Christmas, right?
00:33:37.840
The first evidence we have of public Christmas trees happens in the exact same region 200 years later.
00:33:43.620
So, very likely that it was a related ceremony.
00:33:51.580
The Christmas tree spread in popularity from the Upper Rhine region to other parts of Europe and eventually made its way to the United States.
00:33:58.120
This spread can be partially attributed to royal patronage, such as Queen Charlotte's decoration of Windsor Castle with a Christmas tree in 1800 and the publication of an image of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with a Christmas tree in 1848.
00:34:12.940
And as you put out, Prince Albert would have used from Germany, right?
00:34:15.620
And so, he brought this from his region to England.
00:34:19.440
And then it spread from there because the Queen, you know, big trend sweater.
00:34:22.800
That's sort of the big, that's what most people talk about when they talk about Christmas trees going mainstream is when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who were the ultimate family influencers at the time, did it.
00:34:35.340
Now, where did the idea that Christmas trees had a pagan influence come from?
00:34:39.760
So, again here, you're going to be like, no, obviously you can see where the Puritans got this from, but there's actually another source it came from, and it wasn't wickets.
00:35:06.340
Claims that the Christmas tree originated from pre-Christian Germanic paganism were rooted in 19th century German nationalist ideology.
00:35:14.300
Okay, so claiming that Christmas trees are pagan is a Nazi thing.
00:35:24.400
So, the next time somebody knows Christmas trees are pagan, you can go, shut up, Nazi, and punch them.
00:35:28.860
They're like, they're okay with punching Nazis.
00:35:32.220
We should be able to punch them for claiming that Christmas trees are pagan.
00:35:36.340
So, writers such as Johannes Marbach and Alexander Tilley promoted the idea of the Christmas tree as an ancient symbol of German identity.
00:35:45.400
The nationalistic agenda promoted the idea of the Christmas tree as uniquely German tradition, despite the lack of evidence supporting a connection to pre-Christian practices.
00:35:59.800
And this is something that we've talked about in other videos, right?
00:36:01.760
But, ultimately, Nazis were, like, the Wee West Kang, the white people.
00:36:05.320
They make up a bunch of old traditions, and they make up a bunch of, like, oh, Buddha was a white guy.
00:36:10.840
Like, Socrates was, like, a northern European guy.
00:36:16.080
No, what I am getting from this is that, especially when it comes to Christmas trees, there were, we have a category of traditions that eventually worked the way into Christmas that started out as just random stuff people like to do in the winter.
00:36:33.000
It's just stuff people like to do when it was dark and cold outside.
00:36:35.560
No, it was stuff Christians like to do in winter.
00:36:48.260
No, we, there's a reason to believe it is about Jesus specifically.
00:36:52.860
Come on, this was before the Reformation, so the only ones who got to say what was and was not about Jesus was the church.
00:36:59.740
But what you are forgetting, Simone, is that the date of Jesus' birth was established within Christian communities by 300 CE.
00:37:12.320
Okay, so that being the case, that meant that there had likely been celebrations around Jesus' birthday for a very long time before this.
00:37:21.700
This is just, how do you celebrate Jesus' birth?
00:37:24.980
Because we're not told in the Bible how we're supposed to celebrate Jesus' birth, right?
00:37:29.900
Yeah, but during the time of the heyday of the Catholic Church, they told you how to do everything that was related to religion.
00:37:36.420
The point being is that you could argue that this is like a non-Catholic emergent phenomenon of celebrating Jesus' birth.
00:37:45.860
And a lot of Christian traditions that we see, like, okay, for example, take the cross as like a symbol, right?
00:37:53.260
That is something that developed after the Bible, okay?
00:37:59.140
That doesn't mean it's not, like, a good symbol for Christians.
00:38:04.020
But that doesn't mean that it's not, you know, that's not a good argument as to why it's not.
00:38:09.480
Yeah, so, yeah, Christmas trees are arguably as Christian as the cross, except the cross was taken on a little bit more, like, informally endorsed, because you see it in churches everywhere.
00:38:27.880
Christmas trees are way more positive than cross.
00:38:31.440
Christmas is a great season, and it abues people with a good feeling, and Christmas trees are part of that.
00:38:38.080
They're a very good decoration and tradition in terms of sending this sort of feeling that we get as a family every year that gets you so excited.
00:38:48.200
Well, and Christmas is so good of a holiday to focus on, like, focusing on...
00:38:54.880
On Christmas, over, for example, Easter, it's pronatalist.
00:39:02.100
You know, there's all these songs about a child is born, and oh my gosh, this is so great, and babies are amazing, and, like, makes mothers want to have babies, and, you know, things like that.
00:39:09.800
You know, it's a very family-friendly holiday, and then, of course, you know, all the other ancillary traditions make it extra fun for kids.
00:39:21.480
So, this actually isn't coming from Religion for Breakfast.
00:39:24.180
This is coming from another YouTuber's infographic.
00:39:28.560
Father Christmas, surprisingly, predates Santa Claus, but he is not a pagan deity.
00:39:33.240
Instead, he was a medieval personification of Christmas.
00:39:36.540
Richard Smart of Plymtree is the first to write about him, referring to him as Sir Christmas, and his task is to announce the birth of Christ.
00:39:45.180
So, the earliest writings we have about Father Christmas is the guy who was tasked with announcing the birth of Christ.
00:39:51.960
Now, this is not in the Bible, not biblical, but also not pagan.
00:39:56.200
Like, this is a purely Christian idea that you would have a guy tasked with announcing the birth of Christ.
00:40:02.080
Now, Santa Claus can only be traced back to Dutch immigrants in New York City in the early 1800s.
00:40:08.980
He came from the Dutch Sinterklaas, also known as Sir Nicholas.
00:40:12.940
His feast day was on 12-6 and was moved to 12-25 around this time to help make Christmas a family holiday.
00:40:22.580
Newspapers promoted it and encouraged to give gifts on Christmas instead of New Year's like it traditionally was before this.
00:40:32.520
Santa Claus was a saint festival that was moved to correspond with Jesus' birthday.
00:40:40.000
It was not that Jesus' birthday was moved to correspond with a pagan celebration.
00:40:46.520
It was an already totally Christian saint's festival was moved to correspond with a totally Christian Jesus' birthday as calculated by early church leaders.
00:40:58.000
It was just some religious musical chairs, but all within the faith.
00:41:03.700
And then the gift-giving, which was apparently traditionally done on New Year's, was then moved to this time.
00:41:10.320
This does not appear to be a pagan gift-giving celebration.
00:41:12.840
It was just a New Year's gift-giving celebration.
00:41:15.340
Sinterklaas was rebranded from a Catholic priest to look like a traditional Dutchman from this time period, which included a big red suit.
00:41:24.540
Oh, so he's just like a stereotyped-looking Dutchman from this time period.
00:41:28.420
Like, if he was like a Chinese immigrant from this time period, they would have given him like a really racist-looking outfit.
00:41:51.360
You come here, you kiss my tea, make all sweet.
00:41:56.560
Come on, my rickshaw, I give you a ride to Bangkok.
00:42:02.380
Yeah, that is, uh, that's something interesting.
00:42:06.900
After this, Sinterklaas was exported around the world in different countries, added new spins.
00:42:12.620
Stockings were also promoted around this time period and traced back to Clement C. Moore's, a visit from St. Nicholas.
00:42:19.760
In 1927, in Finland, a radio broadcaster, Markus Ratio, morphed the old pagan deity, Jalupuki, into a Santa figure.
00:42:30.580
Santa changed the Jalupi figure, not the other way around.
00:42:33.740
So, essentially, the Jalupi figure that they're saying Santa came from, no, what actually happened is in 1927,
00:42:40.740
somebody was aware of this old figure and then wanted to make him more Santa-like, not Santa more Jalupi-like.
00:42:49.960
And so then I was like, okay, well, I should at least ask perplexity.
00:42:52.760
Like, what's the strongest, like, counter-arguments to this, right?
00:42:56.420
They're like, well, you could argue that he was Odin, right?
00:43:06.720
And they're like, well, Odin was depicted as an old man with a long white beard, similar to the modern representation of Santa Claus.
00:43:14.640
Modern representation of Santa Claus was not the original representation of Santa Claus or Sir Nicholas, which he is derived from.
00:43:23.140
They came from stereotypes of what Dutchman looks like.
00:43:34.480
That is a modern interpretation of Santa Claus, not the original interpretation.
00:43:39.580
They go, okay, well, during you all, a pagan midwinter festival, Odin was said to lead the Wild Hunt, a ghostly progression through the sky, which bears some resemblance to Santa's Christmas Eve journey.
00:43:52.580
And I'm like, oh, that would be a compelling argument if you had never heard of the Wild Hunt before, which was a massacre.
00:44:14.260
Wild Hunt is basically a horrifying thing where, like, spirit forces go around killing innocent people or other things, depending on what you're talking about.
00:44:23.520
Look, if anyone who's played a lot of video games, when you hear the Wild Hunt, you know shit's about to go down.
00:44:30.680
The Wild Hunt manifests as a ghostly hunting party that whips across the winter night sky, bringing snow and storms with them.
00:44:40.080
If you're out alone at night, you'd better hope you see them first and hide, because if they spot you, they will carry you away, never to return.
00:44:48.160
In medieval England, it was believed that witches could join the Wild Hunt voluntarily, sending their souls flying with the cavalcade while their bodies lay sleeping peacefully in bed.
00:44:58.900
There, the Hunt is known as the Terrifying Ride.
00:45:07.100
It's like, you're like, okay, the purge corresponded with that day in Norse mythology, so that's probably where Christians got Christmas from.
00:45:18.180
It wasn't even, like, the exact same day or anything.
00:45:20.840
Well, I've just, I've never heard that theory floated by anyone who's trying to point to it.
00:45:28.140
Odin rode an eight-legged horse named Selipnir, which some scholars compared to Saturn as reindeer.
00:45:43.920
Just in case you're wondering where Santa's eight reindeer did come from, which also helps dismiss any doubt that it came from the eight-legged horse of Odin,
00:45:55.900
is reindeer was, the very first time they were mentioned as pulling Santa's sleigh,
00:46:00.440
was in 1821, when New York printer William Gilley published a booklet titled,
00:46:06.360
A New Year's Present to the Little Ones from 5 to 12, Number 3, The Children's Friend, by an anonymous author.
00:46:16.100
Well, you will likely know the poem, Where Eight Reindeer Come From.
00:46:19.860
It came from the Twas the Night Before Christmas poem by Clement Clark.
00:46:25.900
So, was Clement Clark, when he decided to name eight reindeer as pulling Santa's sleigh,
00:46:32.020
do you think he was sitting down and thinking of Odin's horse?
00:46:39.760
It was just a rhyming convention of the various reindeer names that he wanted to put into the poem.
00:46:47.720
That kind of reminds me of Jesus riding the two donkeys in.
00:46:51.300
Just as a note, if you are unfamiliar with this particular story,
00:46:56.800
there is a part in Matthew that can be misread if you don't understand the Greek
00:47:02.060
to be that Jesus was riding on two donkeys simultaneously as he went into Jerusalem.
00:47:09.480
They brought Jesus the donkey and the colt, and they put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.
00:47:15.000
The verse is vague, because the Greek word for them can refer to the cloaks laid on the colt and the donkey,
00:47:22.880
But any charitable reading would take it as a reference to Jesus sitting on the garments laid on the animals.
00:47:28.540
And, instead of doing what I do whenever I see a part of the Bible,
00:47:34.720
I should probably just go back to the original language and try to understand it,
00:47:38.060
because very rarely does the Bible actually say unreasonable things.
00:47:41.320
Some Christian literalists try to argue that Jesus actually did ride on two donkeys at once into Jerusalem.
00:47:49.080
This is very similar to the Christians who will bend over backwards to argue that there actually was a census in Rome
00:47:53.920
that required all Roman citizens to return to the place that their ancestors lived,
00:47:59.180
instead of just going back and reading the verse again and being like,
00:48:02.260
is there a saner explanation of what this verse is trying to say?
00:48:05.380
Oh, it's saying go to the town that you're, like, registered as living in.
00:48:09.900
And so, the way that some biblical literalists, like, deal with this,
00:48:14.160
is they go, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on two donkeys simultaneously.
00:48:19.140
You better imagine Jesus, like, a weird guy, like,
00:48:22.000
one leg on one side of a donkey and the other donkey, like, strapped to it, like, walking into the...
00:48:31.600
But it's one of the things that's like, okay, you guys are really trying at this point.
00:48:34.580
But here, it's like the pagans trying too hard at this point.
00:48:37.560
It's like, come on, that puzzle piece doesn't fit in that hole.
00:48:42.820
Anyway, I mean, I think that's important to get out there because, you know,
00:48:45.720
when I was told this stuff at school, I just believed it.
00:48:49.200
Because it's so easy to believe when you first hear it.
00:48:51.100
You're like, yeah, I mean, I don't remember any Christmas trees in the Bible,
00:49:00.060
It falls in that category that appeals to the same person who reads Sapiens and says,
00:49:06.000
oh, if only we could go back to pre-agricultural times.
00:49:09.400
That was how things were natural and how things were supposed to be.
00:49:12.940
And I think there's this intuition that paganism is this more natural.
00:49:21.640
And it's the natural default of things and therefore it's better.
00:49:27.800
So then there's this intuition that, oh, well, that was the default.
00:49:34.360
Look, I'm buying you some more all-natural toothpaste.
00:49:36.900
You mean the stuff that tastes like ass and doesn't fight cavities?
00:49:40.040
I know that you all think the earth and its natural healing powers can cure Kyle,
00:49:43.020
but the doctor at the hospital told me it can't.
00:49:45.020
Well, of course the doctor told you that because he wants to make money.
00:49:53.420
We're bringing Kyle in tomorrow to see the Native Americans personally.
00:49:56.960
Isn't it possible that these Indians don't know what they're talking about?
00:50:00.900
The Native Americans were raped of their land and resources by white people like us.
00:50:16.280
Native Americans are more in tune with the earth than we are.
00:50:19.340
Because now there's new all-natural Cherokee hair tampons.
00:50:28.860
But Cherokee hair has been known for ages to be strong and powerful.
00:50:45.700
Well, I want to put here the thing from South Park.
00:50:48.900
And then the women find out that they're like, well, don't you know that like they think
00:50:59.820
But all of a sudden, the women freak out because they have this different connotation around
00:51:04.720
Hispanic Native Americans and American Native American.
00:51:18.100
And I think that you personally, like as you and your family goes and tries to reclaim Christianity,
00:51:25.740
because I think no matter where you're coming from, you are reclaiming Christianity to an
00:51:30.760
You need to ask yourself, how do you relate to stuff that's not explicitly in the Bible,
00:51:39.520
How do you handle those celebrations with your kid?
00:51:41.960
Does something like Christmas take away from focus on Christ?
00:51:46.780
Does it have elements that could be argued to be idolatry?
00:51:50.680
I mean, I don't think it's as clear as like using saints as intermittents or putting art
00:51:54.720
in your, you know, churches and stuff like that.
00:51:59.060
But like for me, a Christmas tree, because it is not an act of worship, it is a decoration.
00:52:06.540
Well, that's what I like about Christmas trees is specifically the fact that they make you
00:52:13.580
lean into a holiday and get kids excited about it.
00:52:16.080
They're a conversation opener to Christmas and the birth of Christ and a lot of really
00:52:22.560
But you don't feel closer to God because you set up a Christmas tree.
00:52:28.980
Whereas if you, I don't know, pray using like a cross or a rosary or something, you can
00:52:38.120
Like, cause I'm wearing my cross necklace or I'm looking at this cross and then think that
00:52:45.120
But you're never going to, you're not, you're not tempted to do that or there, I don't feel
00:52:51.440
There's that risk with saints and with idols and with crosses and with candles and, and
00:52:58.680
rosaries, but there's not that risk with Christmas trees.
00:53:01.780
So I think they are a wonderful decorative accessory that is fun.
00:53:17.120
It's just like everyone gets presents, et cetera.
00:53:20.060
Our kids aren't told that every night when they ask me for a spooky story, I tell them
00:53:29.200
That's why, why do you think Octavian's constantly asking if he's on the naughty list, Malcolm?
00:53:34.560
Can I try to see Krampus and come into their room at night?
00:53:41.500
Well, you need to have a really big bag and something to beat them with.
00:53:51.460
If one of the kids acts up, I could come the night before and warn them.
00:54:03.840
Well, look, I love people are going to be like, Malcolm, that's child abuse.
00:54:10.560
Well, I do, I am curious to know how Krampus, I gotta look at the actual traditions.
00:54:21.140
I know there are some traditions in small villages where they still have people dressing Krampus
00:54:25.580
costumes, but I don't think that, you know, it's like, oh, it's Krampus, ha, ha, ha, instead
00:54:29.480
of people pretending to be Krampus and beating children and throwing them into sacks.
00:54:34.580
I'm not going to beat the children and throw them into a sack.
00:54:36.380
But what I will do is I will leave one of their windows unlocked and then come in through
00:54:40.120
the window in a very believable Krampus costume.
00:55:08.100
I mean, it's it takes one kind of husband to, like, set up Christmas decorations and dress
00:55:22.280
So my birthday's tomorrow and we're going to be traveling.
00:55:26.580
So I thought I could open my birthday present from you now.
00:55:47.220
So just for context, Malcolm's not his love language is not gift selection.
00:55:52.800
So I buy for everyone in the family all the gifts.
00:55:57.700
And I also keep a spreadsheet to make sure that no family member has more money spent
00:56:04.240
So, like, even though Malcolm, like, uses his discretionary income technically to buy
00:56:09.220
my gifts, I use the same amount of my discretionary income to buy any gifts for him.
00:56:13.480
So he's not like, there's no adverse incentive.
00:56:16.460
And our kids will also know that none ever received any more in value monetarily and gifts
00:56:21.620
than anyone else, even though they get what they ask for.
00:56:24.240
I would let you know I do not like this system, but she manages our finances.
00:56:28.200
I just, you know, there have been members of families that we have been exposed to who
00:56:33.860
take it very personally that certain people received other things.
00:56:37.300
And anyway, this is, yeah, this is your unwrapped box from Ukraine that really scared you.
00:56:46.400
It's a surprise to me what I'm getting at the audience.
00:56:57.120
It's not an egg apron, but it's in an unwrapped box from Ukraine.
00:57:01.160
If you get that joke, you're cooler than Malcolm.
00:57:08.660
Comment below if you get the Malcolm's joke or reference.
00:57:21.860
Like, some people see us as like trad, but like actual people who are like trad larping
00:57:26.960
are like, you guys are the furthest from trad thing possible.
00:57:32.200
It's like they recognize we're not their species.
00:58:03.840
Because look, you can fit so freaking much in here.
00:58:11.720
You can, you just like all like everything you need.
00:58:13.360
Because normally I'm just, you know, you know my purse.
00:58:19.840
If you're walking around with a basket like this.
00:58:24.000
She just doesn't wear them inside to freak out for aggressives and like stories.
00:58:31.740
So the most expensive, like at least famously expensive purse is the Birkin bag.
00:58:38.180
And it was designed for Jane Birkin, who was on a plane.
00:58:48.400
And as a mother, she was like, dude, this just is the best.
00:58:54.260
And she was famous for carrying around this basket.
00:58:57.400
But then she was on a flight with a, I guess, like one of the major designers at Hermes.
00:59:03.500
And her basket like fell out of the overhead compartment and all the stuff fell out of it.
00:59:14.760
But as far as I know, Jane Birkin just continued to use her basket because it works better.
00:59:23.980
Yeah, I was like, I was thinking about it the other day.
00:59:40.640
I think, I think one day it'd be really fun if we build like a trad clothing line.
00:59:44.960
I thought, well, if we do like a merch website, it should be actually probably on Etsy and actually stuff that we really like.
00:59:55.180
No, we'll just, we'll be like Townsend's, but like edgy.
01:00:06.260
If you guys don't know who Townsend's is, you guys need to like go out.
01:00:16.060
You can fit every, you can like, look at just compared to like my head.
01:00:20.320
But I wonder if like the small stuff falls to the bottom and there's like a way to improve upon this design.
01:00:28.340
You could, I mean some, yeah, there, there actually are.
01:00:38.100
I thank you for tolerating a husband who, you know, doesn't remember your birthdays, doesn't get you gifts, and you handle it for me in a way.
01:00:53.580
Yeah, Tim, you ready to, let's put it in the box.