The Origin of Christmas

The majority in an opinion upholding the display of creches at public Christmas displays refers to such nativity scenes again and again as depictions of the origin of Christmas. An essay by Michael McConnell argues that total secularism in society would abolish Christmas trees, Christmas lights, the star on top of the tree, etc., since each has a religious meaning. I don't doubt that those elements do have a religious meaning (though I don't know what the tree signifies). But the holiday of Christmas, as celebrated in America in 2011, did not "originate" with the birth of Jesus. According to Wikipedia, the gift-giving comes from Saturnalia, the trees, wreaths, and lights from the Roman new year, and the Yule log and much traditional Christmas food comes from various Germanic feasts, including, you know, Yule. That's the origin of Christmas: a whole bunch of ancient pagan winter festivals. Christianity co-opted those festivals, took perhaps the best of each of them, and then declared that the winter festival was now about Jesus' birth. (This, despite the unlikelihood of Jesus' having actually been born in late December.) Perhaps portraying the origin of the holiday is a secular purpose, but falsely portraying as the origin of what is actually an ancient pagan holiday co-opted by Christianity as having been Jesus' birth is plainly not one.