I find this very interesting. Again thanks to the Ratzinger Forum that has so many interesting things up today. Of course the first Christmas was celebrated when Christ was born. However this is the place where it was first celebrated after it had been "officially" established as a feast day. I find the nuggets of info that are at the end of this article interesting.
The first official Christmas celebration was in 335 in Rome
VATICAN CITY - It's the dawn of the year 336 and in the Church of St. Athanasia in Rome, Christmas is being celebrated. It was the first Christmas officially celebrated in history.
The identification of the Church where the first ceremony honoring the birth of Christ was held is the work of archeologist Andrea Carandini who gave a lecture at the Ministry of Cultural Assets to discuss some archeological discoveries in the Palatine Hill and the home of Augustus. It was in 335, said Carandini, that the Emperor Constantine, in agreement with Pope Silvester, officially established the date of December 25 for the birth of Christ.
The Church, which is now dedicated to St. Athanasia, weas called the church of Bethlehem and was built precisely behind the Palatine bridge, the pagan site par excellence of ancient Rome. In fact, however, the choice was seen as an outright provocation. Constantine himself was careful to avoid coming to the Eternal City. Not just that. It seems that under the church of St. Athanasia, they have found a door that appears to have a door that led directly to the Lupercale, the cave where according to legend, Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf.
That is why it was transformed by Augustus into a place of worship for the Romans. At Carandini's lecture, also present was the Minister of Culture Frnacesco Rutelli wcho spoke about "a reconstruction consistent with the hypotheses developed by Carandini in the past ten years."
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