The Myth of the First Christmas

Over the years I’ve been asked to write short articles on the meaning of Christmas for various news magazines. Looking back at some of these articles makes me realize how many different views of the season seem to be competing with each other inside my head. Or maybe I’ve just been in different moods!

I thought I would reproduce a couple of these articles on the blog. The following is one I wrote a few years ago for the British journal The New Statesman. I called it “The Myth of the First Chr...