Have yourself a merry little solstice

I knew that Christmas occurs around the time of the winter solstice and was surely meant to do so, but I hadn't realized the strength of the connection:

In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar in his Julian calendar established December 25 as the date of the winter solstice of Europe (Latin: Bruma).

Our earliest source for Christmas on Dec. 25 is the Chronography of 354, though our MS for that is a 17th-century copy of what was supposedly a Carolingian copy ....

... N.b. that we have updated our related post on the seasons.