Names for Christmas

[Eric]

I always wonder why different languages give Christmas different names. The English and Dutch call it Christ's mass. And various languages call it Christ's birth, or simply "birth", assuming everyone knows who was born. I presume that the French Noël is an old word for birth, similar to Nadolig and Natal. Though the Poles, just to be sure, call it "God's birth".

But then the Scandinavians and Estonians go in for the old pagan (?) name which we do have in English, though mostly in conjunction with the log, i.e. Yule and Yuletide. I wonder why they kept the old word even when the wild Vikings, Finns, and others were Christianised.

[Flower]

Eric,
It is called "Jul" in Danish!