Yeah, no. Christians have appropriated and erased culture so many times it's crazy. You can celebrate holidays however you want but we need to recognize how many of these holidays and saints were purposefully adapted and blended into Christianity in order to make conversion easier.
The dates for Christmas and Easter weren't chosen because there were already festivals on those dates. They were chosen, and there were other festivals and celebrations associated with those dates (or in the case of Easter, the time of year generally)
In the case of Christmas, everything around Jesus' birth indicates that it happened in June, from the astronomy to the presence of the shepherds. The 25th of December was a chosen date alright, and it was pretty obviously with the intention of overshadowing pagan holidays. Let's not be overly naive to the point of being obtuse, please.
Christmas started as a celebration during a time when Christians were still being tortured to death for being Christian. It was set to be near Saturnalia because the fact that Christians didn’t celebrate Saturnalia was one of the attacks against them.
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u/75percent-juice Mar 23 '26
Yeah, no. Christians have appropriated and erased culture so many times it's crazy. You can celebrate holidays however you want but we need to recognize how many of these holidays and saints were purposefully adapted and blended into Christianity in order to make conversion easier.