Christmas Was Not a Pagan Holiday: How To Shut Down Family Idiot Arguing Otherwise

In this episode, we delve into the origins of Christmas traditions, debunking the commonly held belief that many of them stem from pagan practices. We examine historical evidence that suggests the celebration of Jesus's birth on December 25th predates the Sol Invictus festival, discuss the origins of the Christmas tree and its late entry into Christian tradition, and clarify the role of Santa Claus, who originated from the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas. From an exploration of early Christian documents to exposing myths perpetuated by 19th-century German nationalist ideologies, this episode sets the record straight on what truly influenced our beloved Christmas customs.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] The earliest evidence for Christians marking December 25th as Jesus's birthday predates the earliest evidence of a Sol Invictus festival on that date.

, and keep in mind, the earliest evidence and the only evidence of a Sol Invictus holiday on that date was written by Christians. So it would have been practiced around Christian communities that were already practicing a celebration tied to Jesus's birth on that day.

Simone Collins: Wow. Yeah, who's to say that, yeah, it wasn't because of Christmas,

Speaker: My life has been a lie! God is dead! The government's lame! Thanksgiving is about killing Indians! Jesus wasn't born on Christmas! They moved the date, it was a pagan holiday!

Malcolm Collins: Santa Claus was a saint festival that was moved to correspond with. Jesus's birthday. It was not that some, it's not that Jesus's birthday was moved to correspond with a pagan celebration.

It was an already totally Christian saints festival was moved to correspond with a totally Christian [00:01:00] Jesus's birthday as by early church leaders. Right. So it's just some

Simone Collins: religious musical chairs, but all within the faith.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today. We are going to be discussing the pernicious myth. Many Christian celebrations around Christmas came or are descended from pagan celebrations. What? They are not? I thought they always Yeah, you must have heard this growing up where people are like, Oh, this came from a pagan celebration.

This came from a pagan celebration. And in almost every case, There not only is literally zero strong evidence that they are, there is very strong evidence they did not. And there is actually also evidence in a number of cases that some celebrations that they're like, yeah, but pagans did practice this.

And you're like, Yeah, and they started about [00:02:00] 200 years after Christians did. Are you kidding me? They borrowed it from Christians, not the other way around.

Simone Collins: What? This is crazy. Every year I get in the Christmas spirit and I watch a ton of videos on the history of Christmas and the pagan origins of Christmas and you're subverting that all right

Malcolm Collins: now?

I am. But hold on. I couldn't subvert this on so many levels. So the specific ones that we're going to be addressing are is Christmas copied from Sol Invictus celebration or did it get its date from a Sol Invictus celebration

Simone Collins: or Saturnalia

Malcolm Collins: or Saturnalia?

We're also going to be discussing Saturnalia separately.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And is the Christmas tree pagan? . Specifically, we'll be arguing in the case of the Christmas tree that the tradition of the Christmas tree is not ancient, it's not derived from Saturnalia, Yule, or Norse mythology.

And then, finally we will touch briefly on Santa Claus being Christian. But, we're gonna hit this from a really weird angle. Because What may surprise you is I thought [00:03:00] that all of this propaganda about this stuff not being Christian in origin Yeah, came from the modern new age pagan like counterculture movement

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, like I'm a Wiccan or I like my druid ceremony and I want to feel like I'm being I'm doing the real Christmas Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I'm doing the real Christmas.

Turns out it didn't come from them

What? So, well, but who is Oh, hold on, hold on.

Simone, obviously, can you guess who it came from? This whole Christmas Oh, our ancestors. I'll give you a clue. They're one of our ancestral groups.

Simone Collins: The

Malcolm Collins: Puritans. Yeah. The Puritans in the 16th and 17th century. Because they were

Simone Collins: trying to be like, well, we don't want to celebrate Christmas, because that's some like pure, that's some like, pagan nonsense.

Actually,

Malcolm Collins: Massachusetts outlawed the celebration of Christian for 22 years.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That, that I understood. I knew that the Puritans were all, we don't do Christmas.

Malcolm Collins: What I would say is they were not crazy not to, [00:04:00] to see it as pagan either. So think about it from a Puritan perspective. Okay. You have like many people today where they're like, wait, like when.

When COVID happened and everything like that, they were like, wait, the government's been gaslighting me for a long time. Like they're just been lying to me about stuff. Like I doubt everything. And then they went into like QAnon spiral conspiracy theory mode. With the Puritans, you know, the, the, the Bible was being printed.

They were like, Hey, this doesn't align with what the Catholic church says. You know, let's look to the Bible for what is Christian. And you look in the Bible. And they're like this Christmas stuff is not in here.

Simone Collins: The tree's

Malcolm Collins: not here. The Santa Claus guy is not here. And so they're then like, okay, where did it all come from?

It must be pagan. And I'd also put this in the context of some lines in the Bible that would make them especially suspicious. So if you look at something like Jeremiah 10, 1 through 5, it says, Hear what the Lord says to you, [00:05:00] people of Israel. This is what the Lord says. Do not learn the ways of the nations, or be terrified by signs in the heavens, though the nations are terrified by them, for the practices of the people are worthless.

They cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold. They fasten it with hammer and nails, so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field.

Simone Collins: Sorry. That's so niche. They

Malcolm Collins: must be carried because they cannot walk. They do not fear them. They do not harm them, nor can they do any good. Now note here, people often shorten this. So if you just hear it like that, you're like, that doesn't sound too much like a Christmas tree, but let's take out about half the words.

Okay. Do not learn the ways of the nations.

Simone Collins: All right. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: For the practices of the people are worthless. They cut a tree out of the forest. They adorn it with silver and gold. [00:06:00] And then people are like that sounds like a Christmas tree.

Okay. But if you hear the

whole context, you're like, okay, clearly this isn't a Christmas tree.

They're talking about the creation of idols that people used to assign special powers to. Nobody really assigns powers to a Christmas tree. Like nobody thinks like the Christmas tree is generating the pre