The Pagan Holiday Battle

When I tell people I don’t celebrate Halloween and I advise them not to either, the first accusation I get is, "Well, you Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter, and those are pagan holidays, so you're a hypocrite." For the longest time, I had no idea what they were talking about, SO, I decided to do my own research. And at long last, I've done it so you don't have to. Here they are, the origins behind Christmas and Easter, those terrible two-faced holidays that Christians celebrate...or appear to.

Easter...or Ishtar?

Yes. Easter is a pagan holiday, congratulations. You know what isn’t? Jesus’ resurrection. Easter is the English word given to Eostre, or Ostara, the goddess of spring and fertility as symbolized by eggs and rabbits. It is a holiday started in the 7^th and 8^th centuries AD by a group of pagan Anglo-Saxons, which originally celebrated the coming of the spring equinox every April (through festivals on the Wiccan calendar), although the exact day is unknown. The reason it is considered pagan, is because it’s the worship of a false god, which includes all the festivities they did, notably a great feast in Eostre’s honor. Eostre is also part of the Wiccan religion along with several other gods based on the seasons. Every season brings a new group of festivals, where they perform specific celebrations, rituals, etc. This meant they engaged in witchcraft, although the specific rituals were unclear, unlike Halloween. The Romans were no different, as Halloween’s bobbing for apples’ origin lies in a festivity dedicated to their goddess, Feralia. This is also the name of their holiday which honors the dead (Feralia is Rome’s version of Halloween). Eostre is also derived from the Biblical “god,” Ishtar, Asherah, or Ashterah,  a known demon (depicted as female) much of the Biblical world worshiped (the supposed wife of Ba’al); furthermore, a practice God strictly forbode, verbalized many times in Scripture, and harshly punished those who were involved (which included most of Israel's kings in 1&2 Samual, Kings, and Chronicles). The maypole tradition soon after Easter is also a pagan practice from German origin and spread to other parts of the world, Anglo-Saxons included. “Ashterah poles” are widely mentioned in the Old Testament. Dedicated to Ashterah (Ishtar), individuals would engage in sexual acts under the pole as a ritual to supposedly bring fertility and military success in the coming season. Today's "Maypoles," although the rituals are clearly different, are still just modern Ashterah poles, since they are still danced around during Easter. Today, places like Britain still engage in maypole dances during Easter.

There are over a dozen names for Ishtar (that I've found), depending on the country, language, and timeline, but her influence is always the same. She is depicted as a woman in every region to date and is always the “god of” sex, fertility, or war in her jurisdiction lineup. Nearly every religion, today included, has this god with a unique name and lore, depending on their culture (that's how you know it's the same demon when every pagan religion has a version of her).

Easter egg hunts’ origins are different than most would expect. Like Eostre, they also originated in Germany, which is why the Christian and pagan elements were able to blend, but its creation, unlike Eostre, is NOT pagan. Even more unexpected, although the elements of Easter egg hunts were taken from pagan Eostre’s eggs and rabbits, it wasn’t created by the pagans. Plot twist! It was created by the Christians! Although the pagan Easter traditions came first hundreds of years before, starting in 1290 and updated by the 16^th century, Christians of the German church during the Age of Enlightenment noticed that eggs can easily be symbolized when empty as Jesus’ empty tomb. Edward I in 1260 invented the painting of the eggs in regard to spring colors. Later in the 1700s, Martin Luther invented the initial hunts as a fun activity for the women and children to represent the discovering of Jesus’ empty tomb and the excitement of new life. The “Easter bunny” was coined in 1682 by a man named George Frank in an essay he wrote “About Easter Eggs.” He symbolized Eostre’s symbolizing of rabbits and re-illustrated fertility into relation with the Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mother. He then invented the storyline of the Easter bunny, who goes around and hides eggs for the children to find (and since rabbits multiply like mice, you can't get any more fertile than that). Put together, the Easter tradition was born. The issue? Although the intentions were aiming for something holy, they were still taken from something originally pagan. It doesn’t help that they kept the English name of the pagan version, basically the name of a demon. Most Christians don’t know this, because not everyone is a historian, so we can’t exactly blame them. Simply calling it Easter isn’t a sin as we recognize it as the celebration of Jesus resurrection, and certainly not the worship of a false god, but it can in good conscious be known better as "Resurrection Day" regardless.

Exodus 23:13 says from God's own mouth, "Pay close attention to everything I have said to you. You must not invoke the names of other gods; they must not be heard on your lips." After finding this scripture, I am fully convinced that "Happy Easter," is no longer a happy greeting, nor does it help the Christian witness to those who know where the word "Easter" comes from. And no wonder the unbelievers accuse us of involving ourselves in pagany, when we run around with the name of a demon on our lips as a blessing.

So, then where did Jesus’ resurrection get recognized if it happened first? Well, we already know that Eostre, egg hunts, and Jesus’ resurrection were all known by the German church, which is how they blended. Scholars have long discovered that the Bible seldom records the date in which Jesus was crucified. Based on a mixture of historical records, it has been concluded (hopefully) that Jesus was crucified on Friday April 3^rd, 33AD at 3PM in the afternoon, several hundred years before the Anglo-Saxons invented Eostre. Jesus came first! So, how did they blend? You have the church of the Age of Enlightenment and the American "melting pot" to blame for that. We aren't just notorious for blending nations in our citizenship, but also the cultures and international tradition that come with them. Free religion is part of our Constitution and like everything else, it has its benefits and its drawbacks, both socially and spiritually.

Nonetheless, Resurrection Day (Easter) is the day Jesus resurrected and therefore, it is still a holy day in which Christians celebrate, eggs and bunnies or not. So, this should not be used to justify celebrating a holiday that was and still is openly pagan with absolutely no Godly interference whatsoever. If you want to complain, talk to the people who take Jesus out of Easter and really do celebrate the pagan side. We do NOT involve ourselves in any part of the Wiccan religion or calendar. We are NOT those people.

Christmas...or X-Mas?

The other fine accusation I get is the claim that Christmas, is also a pagan holiday. “Jesus wasn’t really born on Christmas Day. He wasn’t even born in the winter.” This is correct, congratulations again!

Although the Bible and many other historical texts prove the date of Jesus’ death, there isn’t any proof or hint of the day, month, or even season of His birth. Knowing the Bible is the Word of God, we can conclude He probably left this out on purpose as He wrote and left out certain events for a divine reason, so it’s nothing that we should be dogmatic about. Pope Julius I declared the birthdate of Jesus in 350AD. Coincidentally, according to the Wiccan (pagan) calendar, the winter solstice festivals take place starting Dec. 21 and end after the official day of Christmas on the 25th. This is why the traditions were blended, so one could try and trump the other out of religious dispute, but hey; at least, they were trying to trump dark with light and not the other way around, like Halloween (but that's another story).

Just like nearly every other holiday, the roots of Christmas were tied to ancient traditions. And no surprise here; the Romans (America gets a LOT of our culture from the Romans). Before Christmas and the Christian influence, there was Yule, the winter solstice festival similar to Eostre, the spring festival (Easter) and Samhain, the fall festival (Halloween). The reason they are all considered to be pagan is because they all fall on the Wiccan calendar and its pagan traditions found their way into the modern holiday culture, Christians included. The Roman version of Yule was called “Saturnalia,” pertaining to the worship of Saturn (a form of astrology, in turn, a form of witchcraft, which God mentions and warns against in His Word).

Gift giving was a tradition created by the Romans during Saturnalia. Giving small gifts to each other was done for good luck similar to Chinese luck culture. But somewhere along the line and hundreds of years later, the system took advantage of it in order to turn it into a multi-million-dollar business. Money is literally the only reason we kept it going. Afterwards, the Christians re-symbolized it in regard to Jesus’ birth. We give gifts to each other, because God gave His only Son, Jesus to us, the greatest gift of all time. But this was easily adopted and blended with the image of Santa.

The image of Santa with a long beard, fat, and wearing red and white was invented by none other than the Coca-Cola company in the 1930s. But they got it from the German Yule festival combined with St. Nick. One of the gods worshipped during the Yule festival was Odin, the notorious Norse/German pagan god. He was portrayed as a man similar to St. Nick with a long white beard and would ride through the sky with his 8-legged horse, Sleipnir. The tradition was that children would leave carrots and straw in their stockings and leave them by the chimney for Sleipnir to eat; and in exchange, Odin would put presents in the stockings. St. Nicholas, who lived in Greece around 4^th century AD, was a very real man who gave gifts to the poor and children. He was known for having a beard and wore a long cloak much like today’s Santa. The name, Santa Clause is an English translation to Nick’s Dutch name, Sinter Klaas. So, blended together, the entire Santa Clause image is a blend of Yule pagany, a real historical person, and the Coca-Cola rebrand. In turn, this is where we get gift-giving, leaving cookies for Santa (instead of carrots for Odin; another money ploy), and hanging stockings above the fireplace. The problem is, the image of Santa with its pagan roots still attached in disguise, is so vastly attached to Christmas, that we might as well be worshipping Odin or at least, another figure instead of God; so honestly, we could do Christmas without him. Just because they blended St. Nicholas into the final character doesn’t mean Santa and St. Nick are the same person. If anything, they perverted the name of a Saint and used business ploys to make it look appealing. No thanks.

Caroling began as a German Yule pagan tradition. The original term was “wassailing,” which comes from the Anglo-Saxon phrase “waes hael,” which means “good health.” Similar to Halloween traditions, this was done to ward off evil spirits and is done so by going door to door and singing instead of going door to door and getting candy. But today, Christians can easily go door to door and sing songs with real spirit-warding power instead of the demonic counterfeit. So, take that.

Mistletoe is a sacred pagan plant involved in several pagan rituals. All worldwide pagans used this plant, not just the Germans. They used the plant to worship Saturn (the god and the planet). Originally, instead of kissing, they would perform sexual acts, similar to how they would under a Asherah pole. So yes, they worshipped Saturn by having sex under a plant since mistletoe represented fertility just like Ishtar/Asherah.

Holly was just as sacred of a plant as mistletoe. In Rome, Saturnalia used holly plants as decorations and wreaths as a sign of good luck. Here’s the kicker. The Christians stole it on purpose because of the time similarity. Because Pope Julius declared their Christian celebration at the same time as the pagan festivals, they were persecuted for celebrating Jesus’ birth, so they decided to use holly wreathes and hang them in their house or on their doors to make the pagans believe they were celebrating Saturnalia with them so they would be left alone and less persecuted. In fact, the practice became so popular that when the pagan population began decreasing, the holly wreath tradition was given to the Christians.

The decorating of trees was also a Roman Saturnalian tradition. Romans would hang metal ornaments on trees outside their homes. The German pagans would use fruits and candles instead to worship Odin. Christians adopted this idea to associate trees with life and candles as light as Jesus is as quoted in Scripture. But we don’t hang lit candles on trees anymore for obvious reasons, so we’ve since then switched to Christmas lights.

And lastly, the name, “Christmas.” Unlike Easter, Christmas is a Christian word. The suffix “mas,” refers to a “mass” celebration of something. Put together, it is the mass celebration of Christ our Lord: Christ mass: Christ-mas. This is exactly why non-believers replace it with an X. Those who use X-mas are the ones who retain the pagan heart posture and reject their Savior (and for those of you who use "X-mas" because "Christmas" is too long to fit on your tag labels, think outside the box and use a C!).

To sum it up, the origins of Christmas were pagan, but unlike Halloween and some Easter traditions, the Christians did a good job of thwarting the pagans and turning it into a genuine holiday which represents Jesus (minus Santa, of course). If we wanted it to stay pagan, we would’ve kept the names Yule or Saturnalia instead of changing it with the name of Christ. Yes, we could do without Santa and a few other things, but just like Easter, Christmas is the day we decide to celebrate Jesus’ birth. It is still a holy day in which Christians celebrate the 1^st coming of our Lord, Santa or not. So, this should not be used to justify celebrating a holiday like Halloween that was and still is openly pagan with absolutely no Godly interference whatsoever. If you want to complain about Christmas being pagan, talk to the people who call it X-mas and really do take Jesus out of it and worship the pagan side. Because we are NOT those people either.

The difference between Halloween, Easter, and Christmas

The light around the holidays as a whole still needs to be considered, because if we all took enough pride in the way we live life as opposed to our neighbors, we’d be rioting in the streets about it for no reason and hating everyone around us. Unlike most religious holidays and festivals, we took the pagany out and celebrate for the soul purpose of acknowledging Jesus Christ, something Halloween can’t. We didn’t even try to take the pagany out of Halloween because there is nothing to change. It solely celebrates darkness. There is no light in it to pull out, not even a glimpse. It a blend of pure pagan tradition, not one holy tradition (and light has no fellowship with darkness - 2 Corinthians 6:14). Jesus is nowhere in Halloween like it is in Christmas and Easter. We found enough light in Easter that we changed the spotlight from eggs and bunnies to Jesus and even rewrote the symbolism. We found enough light in Christmas that not only did we change the spotlight from Santa to Jesus and rewrote the symbolisms, but we put Christ in its name. We distinguished the Christian traditions from the pagan ones amongst the blend and pulled them out; and some of us (like me and my family) have thrown away the pagan traditions and strictly celebrate the ones which pertain to Christ. This is not possible with Halloween nor are we going to try. In fact, it is so tied to Satan that to try would be just as corrupt as celebrating it, and would violate a plethora of Scripture. And if you look up the origins of Halloween, you’ll find that even the “Priests” (druids) who attempted to overwrite Halloween into a Christian holiday were just as cultish as the people they criticized. They really were hypocrites. And just like I’ve mentioned through the last 2 explanations. We are NOT those people nor are we going to be (even though I can’t say the same for everyone else).

Conclusion and a word from the author

All these festivals are part of the Wiccan (witchcraft) religious calendar, and celebrations of each worship a specific god/goddess/demon of a specific season/planet/etc. This is where Halloween, Easter, and the pagan Christmas (now called X-mas) came from. Also keep in mind that the Wiccan religion was a worldwide thing. The Celtic pagans (“Wiccans”) gave us Halloween, and the German pagans gave us Easter and Christmas. The Roman pagans are responsible for some of the traditions that we blended into all three on account of the American habit of blending cultures. The American versions of these holidays blend everything together, because that’s what we do. We are after all, the melting pot of the modern world. We accept all races and ethnicities together under one country, and that includes their religions and practices, which obviously includes the practices in holidays, granted to us by the freedom of speech and religion in our Constitution. Our holidays contain the blended traditions of everyone, Christian and pagan. And y’know what that means? We are free to celebrate those traditions however we want as a valid citizen of the United States.

However, do note that this blending of cultures was predicted in the Bible as a warning against and not a condoning. Psalm 106:35-36:

"Instead, they mingled among the pagans and adopted their evil customs. They worshipped their idols which led to their downfall."

This is not the only Scripture with this warning. We see this same warning and the results of ignoring it all throughout the Old Testament and with King Solomon. But this warning was not just for Israel or America would not have access to Scripture as Gentiles. In the Bible, we are referred to as "the west." We are the "melting pot" of ethnicity which includes the traditions and practices of those cultures on account of free religion. But we are still "one nation under GOD." We accept all religions, but that does not mean we, as a nation under God, are to adopt those pagan traditions and practices for ourselves that we have allowed to live in our country. Just because we allow pagans into our nation doesn't mean we are to live like them. We are still ordered to consecrate ourselves to the Lord as His children and even tell the pagans about Him. But sadly, this is what we have done with holidays, the pagan embrace. Christians are celebrating them just as unbelievers do; and just as Scripture predicted, it has and will become our downfall. We have accepted the pagan practices and mingled them with the Christian practices in holidays. We are even celebrating holidays that are strictly pagan as citizens in a nation, which was supposed to be governed by God. And just as God said, it will be our downfall and our nation will be handed over to the pagans; over to Satan (one world religion) before Christ's return.

Another however; this does NOT mean that celebrating Christmas and Easter make us hypocrites if we decide NOT to celebrate Halloween. Why? Because we can’t go around assuming everyone celebrates the same and adheres to those “American traditions" we allowed into our nation. Not everyone does egg hunts and Santa, and Halloween, and the pagan likes, but still celebrates Christmas and Easter, because it is normal. Some of us know the difference between Christian and pagan. Take my family for example. We did used to do egg hunts and Santa when we were little, but it wasn’t because we were hypocrites. It was because we simply didn’t know until people started telling us. Ignorance would say “we don’t care,” and make all the excuses in the book to justify our continued holiday meandering. Not us. We looked into it, did our research, and y’know what? We stopped. Our Christmases and Resurrection Days are as Christ-centered as you could imagine, and we don’t go around calling everyone else ignorant hypocrites if they don’t celebrate the same as us, especially other Christians. It just gives Satan another foothold to strife and division among not just the church but ruining our witness to those who aren’t part of it. Our family doesn’t go around telling people they’re going to hell for celebrating Halloween and including Santa in Christmas and egg hunts at Easter. Of all the petty things in this life that are none of our business. We may lovingly give you the skinny on it if the Holy Spirit gives us permission, and we will do so lovingly; but what you do with that information is entirely up to you, and y’know what? We have to be okay with that. It’s things like these where God really is the only One who can judge you. This is why I’m posting information like this on a platform instead of telling you face to face. I love you enough to make the information available, but I’m not gonna shove it down your throat. A good rule of thumb in this life is this: Never assume anything about anyone and respect their choices. Some things are just between them and God, not them and you. A Christian’s job is to win souls, not arguments. Amen.