People in ancient Rome worshiped the sun on a special midwinter day. They used evergreens to decorate their houses, those with berries were the promise of new life and the evergreens themselves were apparently the only living things in the cold winter.
People gave presents on Saturnalia. The presents were sprays of evergreens or little clay dolls. It was generally a fun festival but some people did not like it because of the animal sacrifice that accompanied the occasion.
As people became Christians they began to think of Jesus and his birth in the winter instead of the Sun and the festival changed to celebrate not the Sun, but the Son of their God.
