I have to thank Witchy Mama for finding this video, because it was when I was reading my blog feeds and found her post containing this video that I first saw it. However, it places an extremely interesting perspective on Yule, Christmas, etc.
I knew previously that there were a lot of things that are Pagan in nature that are tied into the Christian Christmas holiday – the tree, reindeer (symbol of the God), etc. But this explains a lot about why we celebrate at this time of year.
I do wish to point out that if you speak with the LDS church, their missionaries will tell you that the reason they celebrate Christ’s birth on Dec 25th was it was a way for the Christians to get the Pagan peoples to convert. Knowing that the Pagan people celebrated the Solstice, they changed their celebration to reflect when the Star in the East/Star of David/Sirius appeared in the sky. According to what I was told by several different sets of missionaries, and according to the history of the LDS church, which was founded on April 6, is that Christ was actually born on April 6. Supposedly it would have taken the three wise men/kings that long to reach Bethlehem from where they were in the first place after having seen the Star.
Enjoy.