I hope you all have a silly solstice I've been thinking about Christmas. Naturally. It is, after all, the fourth week of Advent. Today's gospel reading started "in the sixth month..." of the year, I'm assuming, and Mary was visited in the sixth month, and presumably, started her sacred pregnancy. So, if there are twelve months in the year, then Jesus was born in the third month of the year, and I think the year started near the Vernal Equinox. Of course, the tales of shepherds in the fields hearing the announcement of the birth of Christ is probably not something that would happen in the middle of winter, yet here we are, in the middle of winter, celebrating the birth of Christ.
I does make sense. Most religions have some sort of idea that the Sun represents,or is controlled by, some god or natural spirit, but the Sun has a personality which must be appeased. The clockwatchers could see the days getting shorter, the nights longer, colder, wilder, more uncertain. Despite the evidence of their memories they couldn't escape the belief that the Sun would one year decide not to come back.
Of course, Christianity does not ascribe a personality to the sun. No angel is charged with carrying it across the heavens. It was put in place by God during creation. The sun is a thing in the Christian worldview. So what do Christians do about watching their neighbors celebrating the return of the sun? They trump all the celebrations by moving the Celebration of the Birth of Christ to the date of the Solstice. The world is dark, sin (for the Christian worldview) is growing. The days were dark, Jerusalem, the City of God, was under the thumb of the Romans, and yet, when things were looking bad, God brought Light into the world. What other day is more appropriate?  ¶ 9:02 PM