Overview
- The earliest known reference to Christmas on December 25 appears in the Chronograph of 354, showing the feast was observed by at least 336 AD.
- Early church leaders placed the celebration on the date of Rome’s Sol Invictus to replace familiar rites with a Christian meaning of light and renewal.
- Gift-giving traces to the Saturnalia’s Sigillaria, when simple tokens and sweets were exchanged long before the Christian festival took shape.
- The evergreen tree and seasonal lights draw on Germanic Yule and other winter-solstice customs that symbolized life and the return of daylight.
- The nativity scene was popularized by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223, and the modern Santa evolved from Saint Nicholas through Dutch Sinterklaas into an Americanized figure that spread globally after World War II.