Is Christmas Pagan?

In the weeks leading up to Christmas you will often find magazine articles and television specials referencing the alleged pagan origins of Christmas. The Christmas tree is part of the Roman Saturnalia festival, we are told, or the Christmas feast is actually the Norse Yule feast devoted to Odin. The suggestion being made is that since Christianity is really just repackaged paganism, it offers nothing novel to the world, or that because Christianity just copied pagan rituals, its claim to unique divine origins is suspect, or that the Roman Catholic Church’s claim to apostolic authority is merely the last gasp of imperial Rome dressed up in religious garb, or, finally, that since it is obvious that Christianity is pagan, it cannot be the Jewish messianic fulfillment and that Jesus, accordingly, cannot be God incarnate. One way or another these whispers as to origins arise every December, maligning the Faith and challenging its credibility.