[Varda]

"it’s said shepherds wouldn’t be having their sheep out to pasture. But that’s based on weather we have now at our latitude."

Very good post about why December 25th could have been chosen as Christ's birthday. Another reason could be that it's the correct date. Scripture says shepherds were pasturing their flocks near Bethlehem. To pasture near Bethlehem means it was after the rains had started (November) and there had been a few weeks for the grass to grow.

Also-
The only indigenous breed of sheep in Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, the Awassi Sheep lamb with the new grass (as do nearly all pasture animals). "In... the principal lamb­ing season of Awassi ewes is in ... Israel in Decem­ber-January."

[dangus]

Thanks. Very interesting. Do you mean to infer that pasture grazing is necessarily done during lambing?