Even the Christians deified rabbi from 2,000 years would celebrate it, right???
Think I’ll throw another Yule Log on the fire. No paganism associated with that, eh?
Are you saying that Judaism is pagan? I hope not.
The earliest the ancients could have readily discerned a return to normal would have been about half a week later, or December 25.
That makes December 25 (modern calendar) a most propitious date! Folks can impute any other meaning to it they want, but after thousands of years of observation, I am sure no one disputes that it's good that it happens. The early church fathers must certainly have recognized that ~ whatever else they recognized.
Now, about that Yule Log ~ there are a number of stories ~ probably all of them true and reflecting nothing more than a roaring large log on a cold night ~ once we know the Sun is coming back ~ is just more good stuff.
Then, there's the Christmas tree. Ancient European pagans dressed up their human sacrifices like Christmas trees. The jump to using a tree is positively Abramic!
The thing to remember in all these customs is that God did not fail to impart revelations to the ancients ~ this is the 'amnesty from oblivion' doctrine at work ~ which means, basically, that if the ancient pagans did it ~ or the cavemen did it ~ or the wild savages out in Borneo or darkest Africa did it ~ if it was obviously a good thing, or instructive of a major moral precept, God said, if only in their hearts, do this instead.
We don't need to know if they were pagans since it was clearly the case that God was trying to communicate with them much as He communicates with us. Maybe we are just the latest link in the chain for the delivery of the Message.
More recently human sacrifice has returned to our planet. We need more Christmas trees; more Yule Logs more devices to detect the solstice so we can see if the Sun will not return to warm the land, 'cause, let me tell you, there's a darned good chance this may have been the last Solstice!
Evergreens-pagan
yule-pagan
lights and fires-pagan
date of solstice-pagan
Christmas tree and wreath-pagan
Jesus was born when the animals where calving.