Is Christmas Pagan? What you should know before celebrating the holiday

By Easton Martin | December 10, 2025

Each year, a familiar claim circulates that Christmas is not a Christian holiday at all, but a repackaged pagan festival.

This assertion is often presented confidently and repeated widely, yet it collapses under even minimal historical scrutiny. The idea that Christmas is rooted in paganism is not only unsupported by solid evidence, but represents a modern myth that persists largely because it “sounds plausible,” not because it is true.

The most common claims involve the Roman festival of Sol Invictus or Saturnalia. The argument typically runs that Christians borrowed December 25 from pagan sun worship in order to make Christianity more palatable to Rome. The problem with this theory is simple: there is no primary historical evidence that early Christians did this. No early church father, Roman record, or contemporary Christian document states that Christmas was created as a replacement for a pagan feast. This is speculation repeated so often that many assume it is fact.

In contrast, there is strong evidence supporting what historians call the “calculation theory.” Early Christians believed that great prophets died on the same calendar date as either their conception or their birth. Church writers such as Tertullian and later Augustine recorded a tradition that Jesus was crucified on March 25 according to the Roman calendar. From this, Christians reasoned that the conception of Christ also occurred on March 25. Add nine months, and one arrives naturally at December 25. This explanation appears in Christian writings long before any clear evidence of widespread Roman celebration of Sol Invictus on that date.

It is also historically misleading to suggest that early Christians were eager to absorb pagan practices. The early church was openly persecuted, often violently, for refusing to participate in Roman religious life. These were people who went to their deaths rather than burn a pinch of incense to Caesar. The claim that they casually borrowed pagan festivals for convenience simply does not align with the historical record.

What we are seeing in the “pagan Christmas” argument is not serious history, but the modern habit of flattening complex religious development into simplistic narratives. It appeals to those who want to undermine Christian tradition without engaging the actual sources.

Christmas stands on thoroughly Christian theological foundations. It proclaims the incarnation: that God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. There is no credible evidence that this celebration originated as paganism in disguise. I implore you, if you hear the claim this Christmas season that Christmas is Pagan, ask for primary historical sources. Often, these myths are perpetuated in a “he said she said” kind of way, and yet the historical record shows that in fact it just isn’t true. 

Don’t hear me saying what I’m not. I’m not claiming that all the things we do on Christmas were done by early Christians, or are traditions passed down by the apostles. I am simply communicating what the historical record reflects, that Christmas does not have pagan origins.

1 Timothy 4:7 ESV

Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness