Jesus was not born in the winter. Luke 2 gives three clues: 1. Jesus’ parents traveled to Bethlehem as part of an Empire-wide census. If people had to travel to register, Rome would have held the census in the summer to enable travel. In the northern reaches of the empire, winter travel was nearly impossible for peasants. 2. The average nighttime low in Bethlehem at the end of December is about 5 Celsius, and it often snows. It would not have been been viable to live in a stable, much less to give birth. 3. The shepherds stayed in the fields with their sheep. This only happens in the summer. The date of December 25th is essentially arbitrary: 1. This date wasn’t determined by the church until about 350 AD, by which time the only information remaining was the same documents we have today. December 25th is nine months after the Annunciation in March, which is the celebration of Christ’s conception. But this date too was selected without historical basis. 2. The Eastern church celebrates Christmas on [Julian] January 7th, not December 25th. This is the result of differences between the Gregorian and Julian calendars. But of course the Gregorian calendar did not exist at the time of Jesus’ birth, and the Julian calendar used at that time was not exactly the same as the one we use today. 3. It is most likely the date for Christmas was pegged near the winter solstice (and the Annunciation near the spring equinox) so that newly converted Christians could continue to celebrate their pagan festivals, but with Christian meaning attached.