Yes Timmy there are Pagan practices in Christmas

 There are pagan aspects to Christmas celebrations. I think it’s about time that we recognize that and stop fighting about it.

The winter solstice is December 20th. That night is the shortest night of the year in the northern hemisphere. It’s the summer solstice and the polar opposite in the southern. It has cultural and religious significance throughout the world. 

Historically the celebration of the birth of Christ was moved to this time of the year. And an amalgamation of pagan, folk, marketing, and Christian traditions have led to the celebrations we have today. It deeply influences them. To the point that some Christmas hymns have winter references. When historical records demonstrate it was the spring. That change has caused over time to have a hybridized holiday. The modern Christmas with a Christmas Eve Midnight Mass and program, then Santa leaving gifts in a stocking or under an evergreen tree. It's beautiful. But note. We wouldn’t have the holiday we have today without ALL of the influences.

Christmas trees. Have traditions in various northern European traditions, and the burning of the yule log is directly related to that. Lest we forget that the term yule is a pagan term. Now many of these symbols have meanings that have evolved (some might even go as far to argue co-opted) to their current meanings. There's a reason Christians put a star on top of a Christmas tree. 

It would be impossible to separate the pagan and the Christian from the current holiday. Just as separating the marketing of Rudolph, Frosty, and Santa himself would be currently impossible. 

It's all about traditions that bond us together. The things we share and continue to pass on to each other and future generations. 

There is a distillation of this that hits close to home in Neunerlei (Neunerlaa, Neinerlaa) dinner. My grandmother's family immigrated from the Vogtland region of Saxony Germany. One of the traditions they brought with them was this dinner. It was nine courses of folk traditions ending in a Christian dessert. Some of these courses had traditional and folk origins. Things like eating herring for health, when herring heads were used for the health of your flock. Eating swelling grains (our case was milk rice) to have a dollar in your pocket the year round. All of it. Now some of the courses were easier to stomach than others (stuffed pork chops anyone over the pickled herring). All of it was wrapped up in traditions that included finishing the whole meal to receive any of the benefits and avoid bad luck over the new year, and then wrapped up eating Stollen. A fruit cake/bread loaf shaped like the swaddled Christ child. It is an amalgamation of all the traditions that came before. Folk, pagan, Christian, and having a modern marketing aspect to it. 

We use this traditions to bring family together. We use them to deepen worship at times. To teach. To share. These Holidays are days and seasons of family, tradition. They include celebration and worship. And they wouldn't be what they are today without ALL of the traditions that led to them. 

I come from this from a Christ centered Christmas tradition. I love focusing on the birth of Christ. His mission to the world. I also love the traditions of my forefathers, with practices that predate their adoption of my now common religion with them. I also love have fun and wonder with a Santa story or movie with my children. 

It's my favorite time of the year. I love it. I just wish we'd stop fretting about keeping Christ in Christmas, having gotcha moments over pagan influences and traditions, and just enjoy the holiday. Because it's fun, it's bonding, and we need the love right now.