I heard once that Jesus was actually born in August. It was pagan Rome that celebrated a feast called Saturnalia that was from a myth of a mother goddess giving birth to a sun god. It had to do with myths surrounding Mithras, a middle eastern god of war associated with fire and the sun that was very popular in the Roman army. In Celtic pagan countries they had stories about goddesses giving birth on the winter solstice. Holly was long used as a decoration in pagan times. Mistletoe was used by the druids, today people kiss under a bunch of mistletoe, but at first only the lower servant classes did this. The Christmas tree is very pagan. In ancient middle east the assyrians and Babylonians the idol worshipers that led the Israelites astray cut down evergreen trees and decorated them colorful ribbons. THis was done in celebration of Ishtar and Tammuz, a story of how the fertility goddess Ishtar went to visit her sister Ereshkagel the goddess of death in the underworld where Ereshkagel ruled and when Ishtar got there she was killed and held captive in the underworld. Ishtar's handmaid and loyal servants prayed for her safe return, but what did her lover Tammuz do? He sat on her throne and partied, celebrated Ishtar's death. Ishtar was able to return to the world of the living if she could find someone to take her place in the underworld. SHe came back and saw Tammuz sitting on her throne, pointed at him and said he would replace her in the underworld. Tammuz tried to run away from the demons sent to catch him, but they caught him and dragged him off to the land of the dead. Tammuz mother and sister mourned for him. Eventually Ishtar got over being angry and mounred for him as well. Then it was agreed that Tammuz would spent part of the year in the underworld, his sister would spend another part of the year, and Ishtar would spend the final part of the year, taking turns. THere would be holidays whenever one of them had their time up and returned to the living world. THe evergreen was believed to represent Tammuz, and ribbons on it bandages. There is another goddess, Cybele the great mother goddess, who also had a lover. His name was Attis, he became her priest. Attis was tempted by a nymph, CYbele became angry and cast a fit of madness on him, when he castrated himself against a pine tree. Attist died from his wounds, the pine tree was stained in blood. So, a pine tree wrapped in bandadges was a symbol of Attis great love for Cybele.
Have you ever heaard the song or child's game: "Pattycake?" Well patty cakes were originally goddess cakes. In the bible it speaks of treacherous families, formerly God-fearing Hebrews/Israelites who worshiped Jehovah alone, falling into temptation of the pagan idol worship of their polytheistic pagan neighbors that worshiped false idol gods, and even sacrificed their own children sometimes to these false dmonic gods. THe children would get involved in the worship of these foreign idol goddesses. THe goddesses may seem harmless on the outside, as if they are gentle mother goddesses that protect hearth and home and aid women in child birth, but then there are the harlot goddesses of ritual prostitution, the cruel war goddesses who seduce and tempt men to go into battle for her and is just as violent and bloodthirsty as a male warrior, the goddesses must have given pagan women a sense of empowerment but it was fake, because these goddesses in the myths had soap opera stories of being dominated by the male gods, of doing shameful, evil, deceitful, violent cruel and treacherous things to get the upper hand. Anyway, the children, women and men would all be involved in baking little cakes to the "Queen of Heaven" which would be Ishtar. THey would prick it and mark it on top with a special symbol of the goddess.
