What's Left #7

What's Left
for the week of December 22-28, 2016

This week:

And Another Thing: Why is Christmas on December 25?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_days
http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice0.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice1.htm
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2:8-14&version=KJV
http://web.archive.org/web/20110430004539/http://www.bsu.edu/web/01bkswartz/xmaspub.html
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2000/dec08.html
http://christianity.about.com/od/christmas/f/christmashistor.htm
http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/lactant/lactpers.html#XLVIII
http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
http://www.whychristmas.com/customs/25th.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great_and_Christianity
http://mith.umd.edu//eada/html/display.php?docs=bradford_history.xml
http://www.historytoday.com/chris-durston/puritan-war-christmas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitsun
http://masstraveljournal.com/places/boston-cambridge/when-christmas-was-banned-boston
http://historyofmassachusetts.org/when-christmas-was-banned-in-boston/
"The Christmas Connection," lecture at Plymouth Antiquarian Society, Plymouth, MA, November 15, 1979

And Another Thing: Why is New Year's Day on January 1?
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/newyearhistory.html
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-ancient-new-years-celebrations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar
http://mentalfloss.com/article/29611/why-does-new-year-start-january-1
http://www.infoplease.com/calendar/roman.html
http://www.holidays.net/newyear/story2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us- our-eleven-days/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol_(Doctor_Who)