Many Christmas folkways have pre-Christian origins

Nativity scenes of Jesus' birth are visible this month -- though rarely on government property. But many other much-beloved Christmas folkways have secular or pre-Christian origins rather than biblical ones.

Consider the date itself. The Bible doesn't give Jesus' actual birthday and implies it was in the springtime. In A.D. 320, Pope Julius I arbitrarily set Dec. 25 and the Emperor Constantine, a recent convert, soon made the feast permanent.

Their idea was to imitate and compete with Rome's orgiastic Saturnalia, which celebrated the passing of the year's shortest day and the promise that spring would eventually follow winter.

The feast day gradually became more Christian, according to the book "Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas" (Zondervan) by Ace Collins.

Some of Collins' other observations:

Trees, logs, plants.

Pagan Europeans burned what became "Yule logs" to defy the dead of winter, and found hope and even miraculous powers in evergreen trees, holly and mistletoe that survived the harsh cold.

Martin Luther supposedly Christianized Germany's tree tradition, with evergreens representing God's eternal love shown in Jesus and candles to signify Jesus as the light of the world.

Colors.

Because of pagans' fascination with wintertime trees, green was probably the oldest color later associated with Christ's advent. Red represented blood and the salvation offered to all who accepted Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. Gold stood for the Wise Men's Bethlehem gift designating Jesus as king.

Candy canes.

Supposedly, a 17th-century choirmaster in Cologne, Germany, placated his restless young singers with candy. To make eating during worship acceptable, he bent white candy sticks (the color representing Jesus' sinlessness) into the shape of Bethlehem shepherds' crooks (or maybe "J" for Jesus). Red was added later to symbolize Jesus' blood.

Christmas cards.

This is also a modern custom, since it requires postal service and cheap four-color printing. Secular year-end greeting cards spread from 19th-century England to Germany to the United States, where the first commercial cards were produced in the 1870s.

Gifts.

New Year's gifts are a far older tradition than Christmas gifts, even though the latter nicely echo the Wise Men's gift-giving and Jesus as the gift of God. One major inspiration was the legends surrounding St. Nicholas, the fourth-century bishop of Myra (in present-day Turkey), who was known for giving gifts to poor children and became the model for the modern Santa Claus.

St. Nick was said to put his gifts in stockings that urchins hung out to dry because they had only one pair, needing nightly washing.

"The Nutcracker."

Nuts were an ancient wintertime treat, but this modern ballet by Tchaikovsky became a holiday classic only with George Balanchine's brilliant 1954 choreography.

The holiday tale of the magic gift nutcracker is totally secular. Children are central to the drama, just as one holy child was 2,000 years ago.