"It was a custom of
the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday
of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In
these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part.
Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians
had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that
the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day."
- Syriac
bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi, cited in Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries,
Ramsay MacMullen. Yale: 1997, p. 155
"In 375 A.D., the
Church announced that the birth date of Christ had been
discovered to be December 25, and allowed some of the light-hearted
customs of the older celebration, such as feasting, dancing and the
exchange of gifts, to be incorporated into the reverent observance of
Christmas. The use of greenery, however, popularly used to
decorate homes and holy places during Saturnalia, was still prohibited as
pagan idolatry."
-
The Solstice Evergreen: The History, Folklore and Origins of the Christmas Tree, by Sheryl Ann
Karas (Fairfield: Aslan Publishing, 1998).
p. 88