CHRISTMAS is regarded as the most important Christian festival and has been set as a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
It is observed annually on December 25 and all Christian nations go on public holiday in order to make merry.
However, apart from some school plays, the festivities are more focused on making merry by way of feasting and drinking than actually commemorating the birth of Christ.
Christmas is riddled with symbols such as images of Santa Claus who is called ‘Father Christmas’, decorated pine trees which are called Christmas trees, gifts, reindeers and elves, among other things.
These have managed to even infiltrate most churches which find no fault in incorporating this idolatry and commercialism with their supposed remembrance of the birth of Christ.
It would therefore seem that Christmas has more to do with Santa Claus who has been aptly named Father Christmas than Christ.
Santa Claus is a fictitious whiteman with a big belly and white beard.
He is from the North Pole and secretly delivers gifts to children during Christmas.
He makes toys with elves and transports them by way of flying reindeers.
He enters houses through the chimney and sets the gifts under the Christmas tree.
In the US, some children actually believe this fictitious character exists and the parents are to blame as they associate this ignorance with piousness.
Exposing that Santa Claus does not really exist to children is deemed as taking away a child’s innocence.
The children actually set cookies and milk for Santa which the parents secretly consume and set gifts under the Christmas tree to make it seem as if Santa Claus did it.
Similar beliefs that are rooted in fiction and commercialism can be found in the myth of the tooth fairy who replaces children’s teeth with coins if they put them under the pillow.
It is absurd that Santa Claus has become the central figure in a festival that is supposedly meant to celebrate the birth of Christ. Christians by definition are followers of the Christian religion and are ideally followers of Christ who ought to walk in his ways.
Why then do they adopt such fantasies from the US and the North Pole when Christ was from the North-East of Africa and spent his earliest days in Egypt shortly after his birth in Bethlehem?
Israel, and Judea in particular, borders the Sinai Desert of Egypt and there is no ocean between the two lands.
It is one landscape and the Israelites since the time of Abraham entered Egypt, if there was trouble or famine in the north so as to blend in with the rest of the blacks of the region.
The Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt from the time of Joseph up until they returned to Israel in the time of Moses.
Joseph and Moses were part of the royal house of Egypt.
There was intermarriage between the Egyptians and the Israelites which did not alter their phenotype because they were all blacks to begin with.
The painting of the Hebrew people and the Egyptians are not of whites, but blacks and they remain to this day.
Why then does a historical figure of eastern origins have to be associated with a fictitious figure from the West as is the case with Christ and Santa respectively?
The very depiction of Christ as either a Latin or Caucasian man is an insult to the region from which he came.
Where is the wooly hair, smooth skin and colour of burnt brass that Christ was reported as having in the scripture?
When Christ lived, there were no Caucasians as yet in the region and they would first enter Judea over 1 000 years later as crusaders.
The only non-blacks that were in Judea were Greeks and Romans who he fled from as an infant and escaped to Egypt when Herod the Idumean (Edomite) sought his life.
When Christ lived, the merrymaking festival of December 25 was in existence already and was a known Roman holiday called ‘Saturnalia’.
This was a week-long holiday celebrating the winter solstice and would begin around the 18th and would end around December 25.
This holiday was frowned upon by the Hebrew Israelites including Christ who strictly followed Hebrew festivals like the Passover, Sabbath, Day of Atonement and the Feast of Harvest.
Seeing Christ himself did not partake of the December 25 celebrations, why should his supposed followers do so? Saturnalia was infamous for over-drinking, public homosexual orgies and the customary beating of wives as was practiced by the Romans.
Gift-giving was a key part of the festival and was not a part of Hebrew culture.
December 25 continued to be the peak of the Saturnalia festival until the 1800s when protestant Britain overtook the Catholic southern European nations of Spain and Portugal in world dominion.
It was in this period that the celebrations of December 25 were set under the guise of celebrating Christ’s birth.
The reason being that protestant Christians would gather in opposition of Saturnalia in masses.
After they achieved the outlawing of the Roman winter solstice festival, they replaced it with the celebrations of the mass of Christ; thus the name Christmas.
With the popularity of American culture came the incorporation of Santa Claus and so on, but the merrymaking on December 25 was a trait which predated Christ and has its roots in Saturnalia.
So if December 25 celebrations are not really about the birth of Christ, and if Christ was not born on December 25, when exactly was he born?
According to scripture, Christ was born when the Israelites were making preparations for the Passover.
The inns were full because Israelites from various places were returning, in order to celebrate the Passover as was commanded by the laws of Moses.
Joseph and Mary were also going to Bethlehem to register their names in a sensus that took place before the Passover.
Winter had passed and it was almost spring time, thus explaining how Christ would have been born in a manger.
December is extremely cold in Israel and could not have been the time in which an infant could be born outside and survive.
Seeing Christ was taken to Egypt by his parents just after his birth, but would be in attendance at the Passover, the month that best suits the circumstances of his birth is February.
This is because the Passover takes place around the end of March and the beginning of April.
Easter is in fact a replacement of the Passover and a period of seven weeks before the Passover would fall in mid-February.
This is most likely the period that Christ was actually born and not in December.
Another important point is that the celebration of birthdays was a Roman trait and Hebrew people were not into celebrating birthdays.
It was not a part of their custom.
Thus even when remembering Christ’s birth, Christians should acknowledge that Christ and the Israelites never held birthdays sacred.
Only the ceremonies and festivals that were commanded by God for his ancestors to follow.
That is the Sabbath Day, the Passover, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Harvest.
In Africa, many groups have indigenous festivals which match that of the Hebrew people.
For example ‘Chisi’ which is a day in the week that people are not allowed to partake in hard work.
This is identical to Sabbath.
The Passover is the beginning of the year and many Africans would have rain-asking ceremonies at the beginning of the year as well.
The Feast of Harvest is a week-long celebration for the crops that would have been harvested and falls in the seventh month. The seventh month in sub-Saharan Africa falls around April when harvesting would be finished or in progress.
Why then should African Christians not follow these festivals which are already part of their tradition and the likes of Christ and the Israelites were commanded to follow.
One thing for certain is that Christmas has nothing to do with the birth of Christ.