Curiosa: Why am I celebrating now?

Biblical Archaeology Review has an interesting article here summing up for a popular audience the current state of the scholarship on why Christians celebrate Christmas on December 25. It's not what you might think:

In the end we are left with a question: How did December 25 become Christmas? We cannot be entirely sure. Elements of the festival that developed from the fourth century until modern times may well derive from pagan traditions. Yet the actual date might really derive more from Judaism -- from Jesus’ death at Passover, and from the rabbinic notion that great things might be expected, again and again, at the same time of the year -- than from paganism. Then again, in this notion of cycles and the return of God’s redemption, we may perhaps also be touching upon something that the pagan Romans who celebrated Sol Invictus, and many other peoples since, would have understood and claimed for their own too.

I'm always up for an appeal to the surviving documentation -- also for a more nuanced view of the development of early Christianity in its social as well as theological milieu. The reductionists who deny either the inculturation or the uniqueness of Christmas make me sad, which is unfitting for the holiday:

Tempus adest gratiae
Hoc quod optabamus;
Carmina laetitiae
Devote reddamus.
ETA: Don't read the comments on the article. Wanking over the use of "CE/BCE" is not appropriate to the holiday, either.