What holiday does christmas originate from?
Although several stories regarding the origin of Christmas are told – the most commonly known one being that December 25th was the day on which Jesus was born; this is also the most disproven one – there are two main ideas: the Roman Saturnalia, which celebrated the dedication of the temple of Saturn, and the generally celebrated northern hemisphere winter solstice, which was a symbolic rebirth of the sun after a period of decline. The Christian conquerers wished to impose their own religion upon the conquered, and it was far easier to simply subjugate existing celebrations and festivals than to remove them and create new ones.
