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before the Christian era, to the Celts of the British Isles. The custom of decorating evergreen trees originated in Germany but did not reach this continent until the 1800s (see below).
Behind many of the old celebrations was the longing for the return of the sun; in some cultures this went as far as dispatching scouts to look for the return of the longer days (to whence these explorers were dispatched is not clear - perhaps to the ‘pubs of the era)
In Scandinavia, a log was burned for 12 days or more during Yule, the period around December and January, in part as a symbolic replacement of the lost sunlight.
The association of the birth of Christ with the earlier winter festivals started about 400 years after Jesus was actually bom. Prior to that time, Easter had been the one primary Christian holiday. Noting the popularity of the winter solstice events, church leaders selected December 25, in part, to piggyback on the enthusiasm of secular
95.9%