Winter In the Shire: "Yule" Love It!

[Aganzir]

Originally Posted by TheGreatElvenWarrior

I think that Yule or the Winter Solstice was brought about much earlier than Christmas.

Yeah, Winter Solstice has been celebrated under various names literally for ages. Christians adopted it as Jesus' birthday because when converting people, it was easier to let them have their traditional festivals, only with the old (sun) deities replaced by Jesus, than to prohibit celebrating altogether.

Since I have a hard time imagining Hobbits were into astronomy, I suppose they just stole the idea of having a Midwinter/Solstice festival from humans or elves, or whoever they happened to be dealing with. The date might have lost its significance later among the other folks, but Hobbits could have kept the tradition alive. After all aren't they just the kind of people who would do that?