Many christmas traditions including caroling and eating fruitcake are derived from old roman norse and pagan customs the tradition of christmas caroling actually began as the tradition of wassailing in pre christian pagan cultures the holly was associated with the god of winter the holly king doing his annual battle with the . Pagan or non christian traditions show up in this beloved winter holiday a consequence of early church leaders melding jesus nativity celebration with pre existing midwinter festivals. Some in the modern day still adhere to the pagan meanings of the pre christian aspects of the christmas holiday reported jefferson calico of kentuckycom groups of people who follow contemporary pagan religious traditions will be gathering to celebrate the old new holiday of yule the festival of light in contemporary pagan nature religion . Twelve christmas traditions with pagan origins updated on november 24 2018 even those people who are not overly religious know that christmas is a christian festival so you would think that it would follow that all the modern christmas traditions developed as part of early christian celebrations it was believed that if a bell was . Christmas in ritual and tradition christian and pagan has 90 ratings and 8 reviews diana said this book published in 1912 definitely shows its age christmas in ritual and tradition christian and pagan has 90 ratings and 8 reviews this is an amazing catalog of european christmas related traditions from the first introductions of