Skeptics over the years claimed that the winter time would be too cold for the shepherd herders to be out in the field with their sheep! The average temperature in Bethlehem Israel in the month of December is 59 degree’s F. There are 6 hours of bright sunlight each day which represents 58 percent of the 10 hours of daylight. Bethlehem and the surrounding hills get 4.4 inches of rain in December. Here is a quote from a Holy Land traveler who spent most of his life on the dusty trails of Palestine; “In the dry summer season the hills are well-nigh bare, affording insufficient pasture, so the shepherds then normally keep their sheep near a town and enfold them at night. But when the winter rains fall, the hills become clothed with grass, and the shepherds knowing this, take their sheep further into the fields. Then because of the distance it would make the sheep walk too far every evening expending energy needlessly, they simply watch the flocks in the fields at night. In the winter the shepherds do not stay in the town they are afar in the field or common pasturage. The sheep were only taken there in the winter.” H.B. Tristrous (Holy Land Traveler)