Look, I know we're not that religious, but mom and dad made it a tradition.

It's the one night a year we get together and have a nice somber Christian evening.

Well, that's pretty weird because historically Christmas was actually a really raucous holiday,

and most of our Christmas traditions have really un - Christian origins.

Here, I 'll show you.

Animated, really?

I don't have time for this.

But I always did relate to Peppermint Patty, Chuck.

The real story of the holiday season starts over 2, 000 years ago during the Roman Empire.

In December, Romans celebrated a holiday called Saturnalia to mark the end of the harvest.

It was a wild party involving gambling, singing, and even cross-dressing.

And in northern Europe a drunken festival called Yule celebrated the birth of the Sun.

Families would burn the biggest log they could find and celebrate around evergreen trees to ward off winter depression.

I hate to burst your bubble, Chuck, but this has nothing to do with Christmas.

December 25th is still Jesus 's birthday.

Actually, no one really knows for certain when Jesus was born,

but we do know that when Christianity took hold of Europe in the 5th century,

some common folk refused to part with these pagan parties.

So Christian leaders gradually transformed these popular traditions into a celebration of Jesus 's birth.

Hey, you pagan freaks, my god was probably born today.

This party 's about Jesus now, okay?

Whatever, dude.

It 's turned up in this forest.

Inserting Christ into these winter festivals was basically a civic compromise.

Make the party about Jesus, and you can keep getting jiggy with it.