Hopefully you’ll know when Christmas Day is celebrated (particularly given that its position affects when our bank holidays fall in the UK), and you’ll probably be aware of the story behind it.
However, you might not ever stopped to think why, and if the holiday has always been as ubiquitous as it is today.
Here’s everything you need to know about the orgins of Christmas, and why it’s celebrated on 25 December.
Why do we celebrate Christmas?
Christmas, of course, commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ according to the Christian faith.
According to the story, Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel, who told her she would “be with child from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18; cf. Luke 1:35).
A heavily pregnant Mary and her partner Joseph then had to travel to Bethlehem to take part in a census.
They failed to find lodging, so sheltered in a manger, where the baby Jesus was born.
He was visited by three kings, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, as well the as shepherds who had followed a star.
While this is all incredibly familiar to us now, initially the celebration of Christmas was not as ubiquitous in the church as it is today, with more emphasis on Christ’s martyrdom than his birth.
Why is Christmas Day on 25 December?
As well as early Christian celebrations of Christmas being limited, the date of 25 December was not decided upon until hundreds of years later.
Pagans – polytheists during the time of the Roman empire – already held celebrations in December for the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) and the fact that days were beginning to get longer.
Romans marked the solstice with Saturnalia, a feast day to celebrate the God Saturn, which involved exchanging presents – this was celebrated from 17 to 23 December.
But in the 4th century AD, Pope Julius I set 25 December as Christmas.
More on Christmas
It is said that it was an attempt to Christianise the Pagan celebrations, according to the BBC. In the year 529 AD, Christmas became a civil holiday.
In the northern hemisphere there were already celebrations for the solstice, such as Yule, a 12-day festival marked by Germanic peoples which served as the origin of many Christmas traditions we mark today.
As Christianity began to spread through Europe, the celebrations were combined, with Christmas first referenced in English in 1038.
In a previous article for i, Jonathan Healey, a social history at Oxford University, wrote: “In English, the first reference to Cristes Maessan – Christmas – was in 1038, but it’s clear that across the British Isles the Christian feast of the Nativity had taken hold some time before then.
“Fascinatingly though, it was usually called ‘Midwinter’, evidence again for its links to paganism,” he added.
While Western Christians celebrate Christmas on 25 December, Orthodox Christians celebrate in January.
The difference in dates is largely down to different parts of world following different calendars. Orthodox Christians tend to follow the Julian calendar, for which Christmas falls on 7 January. Meanwhile the other major denominations go by the Gregorian calendar.