In the United States today, for a great many people, Christmas is the time when you put up a tree and take the kids to the mall to see Santa Claus and tell him all the things they want for gifts. For others, Christmas is a family holiday, a time when families get together, eat good food, and exchange gifts. Still others focus on the celebration of light and renewal during the darkest part of the year, drawing from ancient traditions like Yule and Saturnalia. For many, Christmas is a blend of all of the above.
But what is Christmas, actually?
The Meaning of the Word
Let’s start with the word itself. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the English word “Christmas” originates from the phrase “Cristes Maesse,” which means the Mass of Christ, Christ’s Mass, or Mass on Christ’s Day. [1] The word “Christ” comes from a Greek word meaning “anointed one” which is a translation of a Hebrew word “Messiah.” “Mass” is a word that refers to the heart of Roman Catholic worship, when the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross is “re-presented” in the Eucharist. (For more on this click here.)
The word Christmas, therefore, comes from this Roman Catholic liturgical celebration of the Messiah’s coming and offering his life for the world. The word “Christmas,” however, does not appear until the 11th century. [2]
When Did Christians Start Celebrating Christmas?
The English Puritans famously rejected the celebration of Christmas but for the majority of Christian history, Christians have celebrated the birth of Christ. The first recorded official celebration of Christmas dates to the middle of the 4th Century but there is evidence that the church was probably celebrating it even earlier. Wes Huff writes:
In AD 386, John Chrysostom says that Christmas was being celebrated on December 25th and describes it as a “long time tradition” (John Chrysostom, Homily on the Date of Christmas). The Philocalian Calendar, a document produced in AD 354 for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus, has Christmas listed as a holiday on December 25th. [3]
So the celebration of the birth of Christ is very old and it appears that it has been done in December for nearly 1700 years, at least.
Why December 25th?
But why do we celebrate on December 25th? Is that when Jesus was actually born? Wes Huff is again very helpful here:
The origin of December 25th as the date for Christmas finds its beginnings in the late second and early third century with the historian Sextus Julius Africanus. Africanus wrote a volume titled Chronographiai, an early Christian treatise that attempted to chronologically cover world history from creation to his own day. Based on calculations from his reading of Luke and Matthew’s Gospels, Africanus concluded that Jesus was conceived on March 25th. For the birth, then, he counted nine months ahead, which landed him on the date of December 25th (Sextus Julius Africanus, De solstitia et aequinoctiaconceptionis et nativitatis Domini nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae). [4]
Of course, different explanations for the choice of December 25th abound. Encyclopedia Britannica says in their “Christmas Facts” section, under the question “Does Christmas have Pagan Roots?” writes this:
In polytheistic Rome, December 25 was a celebration of the Unconquered Sun, marking the return of longer days. It followed Saturnalia, a festival where people feasted and exchanged gifts. The church in Rome began celebrating Christmas on December 25 during the reign of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, possibly to weaken pagan traditions. [5]
The folks at History.com make a similar argument. [6] To Britannica’s credit, in their main Christmas article they do explain how unlikely this would have been because it does not fit with the overall approach of the early church. They write:
One of the difficulties with this view is that it suggests a nonchalant willingness on the part of the Christian church to appropriate a pagan festival when the early church was so intent on distinguishing itself categorically from pagan beliefs and practices. [7]
Far from the Christians copying the pagans, recent scholarship suggests that the exact opposite may be the case. In the 3rd and 4th centuries the pagan temples were being abandoned throughout the Roman Empire because of the growing number of Christian converts. Perhaps in desperation the pagans copied the timing of the Christian celebration in the hopes that they could stem the tide. [8]
The True Meaning of Christmas
Of course we do not actually know the exact date when Jesus was born. In truth, the date does not really matter. What matters infinitely more is that the eternal Son of God took on flesh and entered our world. The great theologian Stephen Charnock expresses the incredible wonder and mystery that this is:
“What a wonder it is, that two natures infinitely distant, should be more intimately united than anything in the world; and yet without any confusion! That the same person should have both a glory and a grief; an infinite joy in the Deity, and an inexpressible sorrow in the humanity! That a God upon a throne should be an infant in a cradle; the thundering Creator be a weeping babe and a suffering man, are such expressions of mighty power, as well as condescending love, that they astonish men upon earth, and angels in heaven.” [9]
The final stanza of the well known Christmas hymn, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” captures the reason for his coming so very well.
Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”
The eternal Son of God came to save us from our sins and misery! Is this not reason to celebrate? This is what Christmas is all about.
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[1] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm, accessed on 12/21/25.
[2] The word first appears in 1038, according to online sources like Wikipedia.
[3] See https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christmas-isnt-pagan/, accessed on 12/21/25.
[4] But Africanus was not alone. “A contemporary of Africanus, Hippolytus of Rome, wrote a commentary on the book of Daniel in the early third century in which he too states that Jesus was born on December 25th (Hippolytus of Rome, Commentary on Daniel 4.23.3).” See https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christmas-isnt-pagan/, accessed on 12/21/25.
[5] https://www.britannica.com/facts/Christmas, accessed on 12/21/25.
[6] https://www.history.com/articles/history-of-christmas, accessed on 12/21/25.
[7] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christmas, accessed on 12/21/25.
[8] Huff helpfully points out, “Apart from Sol Invictus, which appears to have been placed on December 25th after the Christians had already acknowledged that as the date of Jesus’ birth, none of the other ancient pagan feasts and festivals fall on that date. Around it, to be sure, but not on it. Saturnalia, for example, was celebrated 14 days before January. Keeping in mind that the ancient Roman calendar at the time had two more days in their month of December than ours today, that places Saturnalia on December 17th.” https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christmas-isnt-pagan/, accessed on 12/21/25.
[9] Stephen Charnock, “On the Power of God” in The Existence and Attributes of God, vol. 2 (Robert Carter & Brothers, 1853), 63–64.
