HOTSPOTS
Of the 365 days in the year, Christmas Day is my favourite, This is the only day in the whole year which truly belongs to Children. The origins of this Christian festival are fascinating.
Christmas Day, the day ordained as the celebratory day for the birth of Christ. Yet, no church actually claims that the 25th of December is the day on which Christ was born. In the Church's history, it had been worked out that God created the world at the time of the spring equinox, then considered as the 25th March, it was declared, this would also be the time for the conception of Jesus with his actual birth occurring precisely nine months later on the 25th December. Yet no Church actually claims that the 25th December is the day on which Christ was born.
In fact, until the fourth century, the dates given for the birth of Christ were in spring (March 28th, April 18th, and May 29th). However, towards the end of the Forth century, a reckoning was made based on the belief that Jesus had lived exactly 30 years - an amount of time including his gestation in the womb. Calculating backwards from the date of his death (then accepted at the 6th of April) this put his birth on January 6th. But, whilst the Eastern Church was happy to mark this date for special celebration as Epiphany (the manifestation of the Deity on Earth), the Western Church had particular concerns in the widespread pagan festivals that it had to combat.
The working out of the day of the birth of Jesus, therefore, was more realistic and practical rather than scientific. The start of the year, for Anglo-Saxon England, remained the 25th December until William the conqueror brought it into line with the Julian Calendar by making it the first of January.