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Not until the Protestant Reformation would attempts be made to eliminate the pagan influences during the celebration of what was by then the Christmas holidays, including the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the Feast of the Circumcision, Epiphany, also known as Twelfth Night, and Candlemas.
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Christmas in Europe during the Middle Ages was celebrated with overeating, heavy drinking, gambling, and the exchange of gifts, as well as religious ceremonies. Regardless the celebration of Christmas for the next few centuries coincided with the celebration of the winter solstice, which gained momentum as it coincided with several other pagan celebrations of the solstice in Europe. When Julius I declared December 25 to be the birth date of Jesus he tied it in with the pagan festival, perhaps accidentally, and perhaps with the hope that it would provide an alternative holiday for Roman Christians, rather than celebrating the pagan god Saturn. Candles were lit to mark the days of the festival as it transpired. While many Roman festivals required access to the public sites of Rome, such as the Forum, the Colosseum, or the Palatine Hill, much of Saturnalia could be celebrated in the home, and it was thus celebrated throughout the Empire, with the official ceremonies only taking place in Rome, at the Temple of Saturn. Gambling was allowed, and slaves were allowed to gamble with their masters, often for stakes which included fruits and nuts. Public business was suspended during the festival, which expanded from the original one-day celebration to one of a week over time. Public feasts were held, and gifts were exchanged, some of them to public associates as jokes, while gifts given privately to family and friends were often of a more substantive nature. Masters served their slaves at the table during one point of the festival, and a slave was elected to serve as the King of the celebrations. During its celebration, no prisoners were executed, and some were granted release. The Roman god Saturn celebrated by the festival was the god of the harvest, and Saturnalia was about conspicuous consumption of food and drink. Saturnalia was a pagan festival which covered roughly the fourth week of December.
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Nonetheless Julius I selected December 25 as the date of the birth of Jesus, which corresponded not with a Roman census, but with the Roman festival of Saturnalia. The biblical description of the event indicated that it was likely not in winter – shepherds would not be tending their flocks in the fields in December or January – and the description of the census being conducted indicated that it was likely in summer when travel would be easier for all citizens to return to the towns of their birth to be counted. Prior to the reign of Pope Julius I, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth had been ascribed to several different dates of the calendar, including in December, January, March, and June. Wikimedia The Roman Saturnalia and Christmas The Roman Festival of Saturnalia celebrated the Winter Solstice and the god Saturn.