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Pagan traditions and Christmas have many common areas. Read on to learn more about Christmas pagan origins.

Pagan Traditions & Christmas

The history of Christmas-like festivals and rituals can be dated back to more than 4000 years ago. There were several Midwinter festivities, celebrated to honor the return of the Sun from cold and darkness, which fell around the same time as Christmas now. There is no contradicting the fact that many of, what we now refer to as, Christmas traditions have been borrowed from, in one form or the other, pagan cultures and celebrations. Many of such traditions associated today with the modern holiday of Christmas, including the burning of the Yule log, the hanging of boughs, the eating of ham holly, mistletoe, etc., can be traced back to traditional northern European Yule celebrations. The missionaries when started Christianizing the Germanic peoples, they offered Christian reinterpretation of each of their popular feasts and traditions such as the Yule. These celebrations persisted unaltered and thus, were inducted to the Christmas festivities. Here is a fascinating account on the coherence of the pagan traditions & Christmas.

Origin of Pagan Traditions
The above lines describe many of the modern day Christmas celebrations which happen to have pagan influences. Many of these traditions were practiced long before the Christmas came into picture.