Good and fair response Pericles. I think the articles's absurd title Reason's Greetings sums up the partisan nature of it.

Sadly it sinks into celebrating sentimentality as a substitute for the good. Pretty poor effort really.

If the pc brigade had not banned the fun we had with crackers the god deniers could have celebrated the big bang day instead of the Queens birthday. What a joke that would be!

<<The celebration of the winter solstice is a European cultural inheritance that’s been purloined by the Christian branch of our global family.>>

<<December 25 was not (Jesus') birthday.>>

December 25 is not the winter solstice.

It's what they believed the winter solstice to be in ancient times, Proxy.

The ancient Egyptians calculated that there were 360 days in the year. They weren't right either, but they were pretty close considering the times they lived in.

I must say though, it's nice to see the Christian come out of you from time-to-time, Proxy. It's a refreshing and honest change from the 'I'm not a Christian' act.

Mine was an astronomical and not a theological comment.

Commenting on Christmas no more makes me a Christian than
commenting on female genital mutilation makes me a Muslim.

"December 25 is not the winter solstice."

Almost right, Proxy. It's not the date of the solstice now.

First, I never said the winter solstice fell on 25 December and, in fact, the exact date is a little hard to pin down.

The winter solstice in northern Europe currently falls around the 21-22 December, however, as Italy is further south, it occurs a little later - around the 23rd. But when the Roman calendar was reorganized in 45BC, the date of the winter solstice was set at 25 December. I don't claim to be an expert on historical calendars but it seems the early Julian calendar ran a couple of days ahead of ours, which explains the discrepancy (I'm happy to be corrected on this).

The pagan festivities in honour of the winter solstice are generally believed to have begun in late December and continued through to early January - although some scholars date the festival beginning as early as mid-November. In other words, the very early pagan winter solstice festivities ran *through* 25 December and would have been at their height around that date. The Roman's Saturnalia was celebrated (originally on one day) but ultimately during the week leading up to December 24. It was the Romans who decided to make 25 December the date on which Christ's birth would be celebrated and, as far as I can tell, this is the date *they* marked as the winter solstice. Prior to this, Christ's birthday had been celebrated on 6 January.

Many early deities were said to have been born close to the date of the winter solstice (around about 25 December) but at this distance, and with changes in calendars, it's probably not possible to pin them down to one particular day.

My point was that there were many ancient festivals based upon the winter solstice. These were held on or around the 25 December and, in time, morphed into the Christian festival.