The ancient Nordic cult ceremony "mid winter sacrifice" was originally celebrated as the birthday of the Sun.

So as not to reject the Nordic pagans and making the "conversion" to Christianity easier for those, the time for this festival was made to represent the birthday of Jesus Christ. This point of time is founded on the following imaginative calculation. The Annunciation Day of Virgin Mary was considered to be the day of vernal equinox, i.e. the 25th of March. Vernal equinox was obviously considered to be the beginning of everything. The birth of Jesus would thus have been 9 months later, i.e. the 25th of December.

How absurd this conclusion is, is evident from the fact that in December they don't have the sheep outside in the high situated parts of Israel, as Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. There it is too cold then. The symbols of Christmas, Father Christmas, the Christmas goat made from straw, the Christmas tree, the Christmas gifts; the Christmas candles and the gormandizing all have heathen progenitors. The dwarf like gnomes got by a Swedish drawer a new figure as Father Christmas. The Christmas Goat was originally a symbol of the devil. The Caldeic tree cult is the origin of the Nordic Christmas tree, the top branch of it they put on the dunghill, decorated with gaudy rags and egg peels, as a guarantee for good growth. Hanging gingerbread biscuits in the Christmas tree is a remnant from the times when animals or people were sacrificed by hanging them in trees at the ancient Nordic mid winter sacrifice. The Christmas gift is not a Swedish invention. Its classical origin can be counted from the New Year's gifts by the Romans. At the 14th century the Catholic custom of giving the children gifts at the 6th of December, the Saint Nicholas day was brought to the Protestant countries from the Catholic countries. The Christmas candles have ancient traditions. At the mid winter sacrifice they lit fires for celebrating that the sun had returned. Gormandizing in food and drinks together with celebrating Christmas had its correspondence at the mid winter ancient Nordic sacrifice.

"The Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'Take, eat; This is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.' In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me'."
1 Cor 11:23-25

Jesus thus told us, to eat and drink as a memory of his death. Though, he never told us to celebrate his birthday. Celebrating his birthday is nothing but the continuation of an old pagan tradition, whatever the "religious" want to call it. The celebration of Christmas as a memory of the birth of Jesus is therefore completely in conformity with the following Bible verse.

"You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it."
John 8: 44

The text passage below is translated from the book "How will it pass", in Swedish by Dan Johansson, Malmö, Sweden.

The festival Hag HaSukkot is falling on the 15 - 22 in the Jewish month of Tishri. It is the seventh and last of the festivals that the Lord commanded to Moses. This festival starts five days after Jom Kippur, the great atonement day. This day, in turn, is falling on the tenth day of the seventh month, called Tishri.

"Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles, for seven days to the Lord. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a sacred assembly. And you shall do no customary work on it.'" Lev 23:34-36.

"You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God."
Lev 23:42-43.

The 29th of September, which is the start of the festival Sukkot is the birthday of Jesus.
Chanukah is celebrated as a memory of the miracle with the oil that was enough for the candlestick for burning as many days as needed for getting new oil. The feast in John 10:22 is called the inaugural ceremony. If we put a Jewish calendar parallel to an English one, we see that the begetting happened at Chanukah, our Christmas time, and the birth at Sukkot.

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" John 1:14.

"The word became flesh" = the begetting at Chanukah. "and dwelt among us" = the birth at Sukkot.
We can see from the text about the father of John the Baptist, Zachariah, that the text above is correct.

"There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zachariah, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth." Luke 1:5.

When those different divisions worked, you can see from the working schedule in 1 Chr 24:7-10. We are thus with some studies of God's word able to see that the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot, clearly can be attached to the birth of Jesus.
The feast has some different main purposes: partly as a memory of the desert ramble, partly a thank feast that the harvest has come in. The feast is also a joy feast about surviving Jom Kippur.

Mikael Lillieros