人们常常惊讶地发现，最早的基督徒并没有庆祝圣诞节。习俗是为了庆祝圣人出生到永生 – 换句话说，就是他的死。耶稣受难日（基督复临）和复活节星期日（复活）成为焦点。直到今天，教会只庆祝三个生日：圣诞节;圣母玛利亚的诞生;和施洗约翰的诞生。庆祝活动中的共同点是，所有三个人都没有原罪：基督，因为他是上帝的儿子;玛丽，因为她在圣母无染原罪中被上帝圣化了;和施洗约翰一样，因为他在访问期间在他母亲伊丽莎白的子宫中的跳跃被视为一种洗礼（因此，即使约翰被原罪所怀孕，他在出生前也被洗净了）。不过，花了一段时间才让教会发展圣诞节。虽然它早在公元三世纪就已在埃及庆祝，但直到四世纪中叶才在整个基督教世界传播。它于1月6日与Epiphany一起首次庆祝; 12月25日，圣诞节逐渐被分成了自己的盛宴。许多早期的教父都认为这是基督诞生的实际日期，尽管它确实与罗马的纳塔利斯因维蒂节（冬至，罗马人）相吻合。在12月25日庆祝，天主教百科全书并没有拒绝将这个日期选为“异教徒盛宴的蓄意合法’洗礼’的可能性。”到了六世纪中叶，基督徒已经开始观察圣诞节准备的复临节，禁食和禁欲;从圣诞节到主显节，圣诞节的十二天已经成立。
新加坡国立大学Essay代写：圣母玛利亚的诞生
People are often surprised to find that the earliest Christians did not celebrate Christmas. The custom is to celebrate the birth of a saint to eternal life – in other words, his death. Good Friday (Christ’s Advent) and Easter Sunday (Resurrection) became the focus. To this day, the church celebrates only three birthdays: Christmas; the birth of the Virgin Mary; and the birth of John the Baptist. What is common in the celebration is that all three have no original sin: Christ, because he is the Son of God; Mary, because she was sanctified by God in the Immaculate Conception; like John the Baptist, because he was visiting The jump in the womb of his mother Elizabeth during the period was considered a baptism (hence, even if John was pregnant by the original sin, he was washed before he was born). However, it took a while for the church to develop Christmas. Although it was celebrated in Egypt as early as the third century AD, it was not spread throughout the Christian world until the middle of the fourth century. It celebrated for the first time with Epiphany on January 6th; on December 25th, Christmas was gradually divided into its own feast. Many of the early godfathers thought this was the actual date of the birth of Christ, although it did coincide with the Natalis Invitia (the winter solstice, the Romans) in Rome. Celebrating on December 25th, the Catholic Encyclopedia did not reject the possibility of choosing this date as the “deliberate legal baptism” of the pagan feast.” By the middle of the sixth century, Christians had begun to observe the Christmas preparations for the Advent Fasting and abstinence; from Christmas to Epiphany, the twelve days of Christmas have been established.