If Jesus Christ was supposedly born in late spring why do you celebrate Christmas in December?

Answer 1

Answer

I think the early church moved many religious holidays in an attempt to overshadow pagan holidays of old times. Some examples:

Christmas was moved to cover up old winter festivals.

Easter was moved to cover up spring festival which celebrated rebirth and fertility - hence bunnies and baby chicks.

All Hallows day aka All Saints day was unsuccessfully meant to cover up the pagan or occult gatherings around that time of year during which time they believed they could talk with the dead. Halloween (hallow-eve) is still celebrated the night before.

Answer

Indications are that Christ, if he existed, was born in late spring, and the celebration of his birth was shifted to coincide with the pagan right of the winter solstice, so that early Christians weren't persecuted.

Answer

According to Luke 2:8 the shepherds were out in the fields watching their flocks at night. This is apparently unlikely to take place in the winter and is thought by some to have been late September, which would make the end of December of the previous year as the time of the miracle of the incarnation. The adoption of December 25 has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual date of Jesus' birth. This is not an unusual thing even in modern times as a holiday for the birthday of the Queen Elizabeth II of England is not held on her actual birthday either.

Nor is it significant at all that the date is not known as the fact of both Jesus' birth and death and glorious resurrection are more important to the writers and their meaning, not the actual date. This was common practice for ancient writers -to only focus on key events in a life or in the history of a nation. In any case, September would be autumn in Israel, not spring.

Answer

Some research has been done as to when taxes were collected, remembering that Joseph and Mary were travelling to pay taxes. On the other hand, when Constantine created modern Christianity he was primarily attempting to unify Europe under a "universal" religion. So it should come as no surprise that holidays of many local religions were all mixed in together to create the holidays of the new universal church. Christmas, the supposed birthday of the founder of Christianity, coincides with winter festival, a celebration of the sun returning its voyage back north. The root word of Catholic means "universal".