Boanerges said,

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Your going to have to back that date up about 100 years there Johnnie according to this: Christmas celebration it was actually the Egyptian Theologians not the popes that started the celebrations.
The day they celebrated was 20 May, not 25 Dec. JB was referring to the Church celebration on 25 Dec, a day linked to Mithra's birthday and which the popes accepted…..

PS: Mithraism was celebrated app. 2500 years before the birth of Christ (practiced in the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD). There are references to it even in Ezra (1:8; 4:7).

according to your articles;

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The well-known solar feast, however, of Natalis Invicti, celebrated on 25 December, has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date. For the history of the solar cult, its position in the Roman Empire, and syncretism with Mithraism, see Cumont's epoch-making "Textes et Monuments" etc., I, ii, 4, 6, p. 355. Mommsen (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 12, p. 338) has collected the evidence for the feast, which reached its climax of popularity under Aurelian in 274. Filippo del Torre in 1700 first saw its importance; it is marked, as has been said, without addition in Philocalus' Calendar. It would be impossible here even to outline the history of solar symbolism and language as applied to God, the Messiah, and Christ in Jewish or Chrisian canonical, patristic, or devotional works. Hymns and Christmas offices abound in instances; the texts are well arranged by Cumont (op. cit., addit. Note C, p. 355).

The Catholic Encyclopedia

Reformed and Always Reforming,