Even so, Mithraism remained hard to defeat while it celebrated the Saturnalia and the day of the invincible Sun. Some time after A.D. 300, therefore, the Christians invented Christmas. It became proper for Christians to enjoy December 25 and all the saturnalian happiness associated with it, provided they called it a celebration of the birth of Jesus the Son and not Mithra the Sun. (There is, of course, no Biblical warrant for December 25 as the day of the birth of Jesus.)

The Saturnalia is, in any case, the victor, and the Christmas we now celebrate is only formally Jesus’ birthday. For many, that aspect of it is quickly disposed of with minimum fuss. It is the Saturnalia on which our attention is fixed-the gift-giving, the holiday cheer, the time of good feeling, the eating, drinking, celebrating.

In fact, in the modern United States we have a much bigger and better Saturnalia than ever the Romans did. From the moment Thanksgiving is over, all the traditional Christmas decorations begin to blossom forth in businesses, homes and streets, and we all enjoy (or sometimes suffer) an intense four-week celebration. Even the permitted sexual license survives-in attenuated form-in the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe. What we celebrate is a purely pagan festival presided over by Santa Claus-a comparatively modern invention, frozen into his present form in 1822, with the publication of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” by Clement C. Moore.

Another modern myth that has grown up around Christmas is that it is a time of universal benevolence in which even the hardest heart will soften, a theme immortalized forever in Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” first published in 1843.

As a result, whenever some despicable thing is done during the month of December, the general reaction is a disapproving “and at Christmastime, too,” as though it would be less despicable if done at any other time.