The short answer to our title question is NO!!!  Now we know this will not be the most popular study we have ever done here at Biblical Truth but we feel it is imperative that the TRUTH is known.  We know what Christmas “means” to Christians as we once followed in the same belief as most.  We ask you though, do you know what Christmas means to Yahweh?

In the beginning of the Old Testament, YHVH told us to never worship HIM in the same way the other nations worshipped their gods.  HE was referring to how the pagans celebrated their gods.  It is actually commanded that we never do anything that makes us worship HIM like pagans worshipped their gods; commanded by YHVH in Deuteronomy 12:29-31.  It doesn’t matter if we have lost focus and adopted a ritualistic pagan practice of gift giving, Christmas trees, wreaths, holly, gingerbread men, or even Santa; YHVH commanded that we don’t do it.  It doesn’t matter what we have made it into as a society either.  It only matters that we have just changed the name of the practice and made it for HIM.  HE doesn’t want us to make pagan festivals into Holy days for HIM.  Every time the PEOPLE of Bible tried to make something about themselves, YHVH has corrected them.   HE even corrected His followers when they tried to do something for HIM that HE had already commanded they never do; see Golden Calf story in Exodus.   If you look deep enough into the scriptures you will never find a command from YHVH to give gifts on any Holy Day. Don’t misunderstand us though, YHVH does not consider Christmas a Holy Day.  HE already set in place HIS Feast Days that we are to celebrate.  It is highly likely that Yeshua was born around September-October time frame; scholars argue time frame a lot.  

The celebration of Christmas is completely pagan and comes from a very long history of sun god worship that happens around the winter solstice.  It was most recently called Saturnalia (Rome)  and throughout time it was the celebration of Mithra (Persian and adopted by Romans), Tammuz (Babylon), Saturnus (Roman).  December 25th was the “Victory of the sun-god” Festival in the pagan Babylonian world. In the ancient Roman Empire, the celebration can be traced back to the Roman festival Saturnalia, which honored Saturn, the harvest god, and Mithras, the god of light; both were celebrated during or shortly after the winter solstice (between the 17th and 23rd of December). To all ancient pagan civilizations, December 25th was the birthday of the gods — the time of year when the days began to lengthen and man was blessed with a “regeneration of nature.” Moreover, all of December 25th’s Babylonian and Roman festivals were characterized by 5-7 day celebration periods of unrestrained gluttonous revelry and licentiousness. Christmas comes from the pagans for the birthdate of their gods. Did you know Mithras, the sun-god, was supposed to have been born in December at the winter celebrations but so were Osiris, Horus, Attis of Phrygia, Zoroaster, Dionysus, Adonis, Hermes, Bacchus, Hercules, Promtheus, Jupiter, Buddha, and Krishna to name a few! If you research you will find that Constantine wanted his people to be united and allowed the pagan traditions to be incorporated into YHVH‘s commanded Feast Days.  Christianity did not destroy paganism, it adopted it.  Over time, YHVH‘s commanded Times have been forgotten and at one point they were even outlawed with harsh penalties for those following them.  The Holy Days may not be outlawed anymore but they have been forgotten by most of His followers.  Most followers celebrate Christmas which is not a commanded Holy Day and have completely abandoned or never been taught what the Holy Days are and what they mean to HIM.

At this point in our study you may be wondering if this is true or saying to yourself,  “the celebration of Christmas doesn’t mean that to me”.  We are not the judge of you but we feel we must always ask ourselves what it means to YHVH if we celebrate HIM the same way the pagans celebrated their gods (Deuteronomy 12:29-31).  Some Believers will say, “HE knows my heart and we do it for the right reasons.”  They feel those reasons are something YHVH accepts yet we are commanded to avoid pagan god worship traditions.  The entire Sacred Text has continually told His believers to never follow in the traditions of the pagans nor use their traditions to celebrate HIM. 

Let’s look at some of the things associate with Christmas that we teach our children.

SANTA

A man with magical powers that is the judge of every child on earth(god-like).  He has very similar characteristics to the Norse God Odin; father of Thor.  His myth was used by many other pagan religions.  Eventually Sinterklaas became St. Nicholas and now called santa.  He has replaced our children’s lives with wonder and magic.  When your child finds out Santa isn’t real their next question will be, “Is God real”.

Mistletoe

Druids felt mistletoe was magical and hung it over their doorways for luck.  Mistletoe means “all heal” in the Celtic language.  It is also a sign of fertility.  Norse god Baldr, son of Norse god Odin, was killed by an arrow tipped with mistletoe that Loki (god of evil)  made and gave to Hoder (blind god of winter) to shoot.  Kissing under the mistletoe is just another license to come in contact, sexually speaking, with a stranger/virgin that stems from the Roman celebration mentioned above called Saturnalia.  It is now an adopted practice used throughout many homes during the Christmas season.

Christmas Trees

The evergreen tree symbolizes eternal life and it was a custom of the ancient Egyptians to have them.  Tree worship was also common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at the New Year to scare away the devil and they also set up a tree for the birds during winter.  The current way most people decorate their Christmas tree with lights didn’t gain ground until around 18th century.

Christmas Gifts

Giving wrapped up gifts for Christmas has nothing to do with the wise men giving gifts as some try to state.  We don’t see how Yeshua would want us to spend huge amounts of money on ourselves and collect all sorts of material items in remembrance of HIM.  We don’t see any problem with giving gifts to family or friends but it shouldn’t come on a day that was used by pagans for their celebrations.  We also don’t believe Yeshua would appreciate the vast amounts of money spent during Christmas season.  We believe he would like to see that money spent on the poor, needy, and hungry.

In our opinion, if one wants to make up a Holiday for Yeshua then why choose a day that was already used by just about every other pagan religion for just about every other sun god ever known.  If one wants to claim a day and make it as a remembrance to the birth of Yeshua, don’t use all the pagan symbolism to do so; make it for HIM if you must.  Even though YHVH has never commanded in the Old or New Testament to celebrate the birth of anyone, if one truly wants to celebrate the birth of Yeshua then why not study and try to figure out what month HE was actually born in. If you absolutely can’t do away with Christmas due to your family’s tradition, then use the time of the year to help the needy, the widows, and orphans in your community; there are plenty.

There is NO WAY Yeshua would ever condone extravagant spending on our own family when there are so many needy families out there.  We urge you to take the journey we have taken and find the TRUTH, it will set you free.  Giving to the needy, widows, and orphans brings about internal peace for the giver and internal/external joy to the receiver.  The receiver is always appreciative beyond words and the giver is blessed by YHVH; remember to give in secret though (Matthew 6:1-4).

With knowledge ever growing, we will add more to this as we learn more over our lifetime. One note to those grammar folks out there, we are not great with grammar.  We do purposefully avoid capitalizing the word god in this article when speaking of any other god besides YHVH (YAHWEH= The One True God).

“Always Learning”
Biblical Truth