Christmas...

Posted this on Facebook. Since I havn't posted anything on here recently I thought I'd share.

A few of my friends have been posting that they are "reclaiming Christmas". It's your faith, more power to you. But in the interest of balance...
Your christmas tree? A nordic pagan symbol of male fertility, just as the wreath represents feminine fertility.
Christmas presents? The giving of gifts is a holdover from Saturnalia, an Ancient Roman festival from around this time of year that predates Christ's birth by over 200 years.
25th December? The date of Christ's birth is never explicitly stated in the bible but historians have narrowed it down to sometime between the end of September and mid-February. Theoretically speaking. Maybe it was easier to hijack the pagan celebration of Yule than to compete with a much older festival?
(Interestingly enough early Christians didn't celebrate birthdays, not even the birth of Christ, considering it to be a pagan custom! Only the Jehovah's Witnesses have stuck to their guns on THAT one.)
So I do know how you feel, having your holy days renamed, plagiarised and subsumed. The same happened to us pagans, by some imported middle-eastern religion as I recall. I forget the name :)