Jeff Morrison’s Dec. 11 column, “It isn’t ‘the Holiday’ — it’s Christmas!” laments the elimination of the word “Christmas” from references to the celebration centered on Dec. 25. He would like us to acknowledge the true meaning of Christmas.

However, a historical perspective shows the very celebration of Christ’s birth on Dec. 25 is already a concession to political correctness. In the first centuries of Christian history, Christians did not uniformly celebrate Jesus’ birth on Dec. 25, if they celebrated it at all. Easter seemed more important in early Christianity.

So why was Dec. 25 chosen as the date of Christ’s birth in Western churches? We are not entirely sure, but the leading hypothesis points to a concession to the Roman celebration of the birth and triumph of the sun at the winter solstice.

We have an explicit explanatory tradition in the twelfth century, in comments found in the margin of a manuscript attributed to a Syrian Christian writer named Dionysius bar Salibi. Note what is said in those comments: “The reason for which the Fathers transferred the said solemnity from the sixth of January to the twenty-fifth of December is, it is said, the following: It was the custom of pagans to celebrate on this same day of the twenty-fifth of December the feast of the birth of the sun. To adorn the solemnity, they had the custom of lighting fires and they invited even Christian people to take part in these rites. When, therefore, the Doctors [of the Church] noted that the Christians were won over to this custom, they decided to celebrate the feasts of the true birth on the same day” (Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year [Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1986] pages 101-102).

For this Christian author, picking Dec. 25 for the birth of Christ was not only a political concession of sorts, but it was a concession to paganism.

So, if Mr. Morrison wishes to celebrate the “true” or “original” meaning of “Christmas,” he must probably abandon Dec. 25 and leave it as a pagan “holiday” that probably pre-dated any Christian celebration on that date.

Hector Avalos

Associate Professor

Religious Studies