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Christmas and Winter Solstice

The Pre-Christian origin of Christmas is said to come from the Winter Solstice celebrations.

A winter festival has been a traditional festival in many cultures due to the winter solstice. Christmas celebrations were created by the early Church in order to entice pagan Romans to convert to Christianity without losing their own winter celebrations. Most of the most important gods in the religions of Ishtar and Mithra also had their birthdays on December 25.

Various Christmas traditions are considered to have been syncretised from various winter festivals.