Victor R. Claveau, MJ
The Puritans, including the group of them who came from England to our Plymouth shores, known as Pilgrims, banned Christmas. This was due to their intense hostility towards the “Romish Church,” and the Church of England, charged with following “popish” practices.
Christmas was banned in England for eleven years by Act of Parliament (1659), during the ascendancy of Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan party. In New England, Christmas was banned for twenty-two years by the Great and General Court of Massachusetts (the legislature).
Pilgrim Children were not allowed to have a Santa Claus, a Christmas tree, or a vacation from school on Christmas day. Adults were not allowed to feast, to dance, or to refrain from work on the 25th day of December. Such actions were punishable by fine or imprisonment. The Pilgrims boasted that they worked on Christmas. Samuel Sewell, famous for the diary he kept, noted in his chronicle, covering the years 1623-1729, many of the hostile acts against the observance of Christmas. He recorded with satisfaction the number of stores open on Christmas days and the carts coming to town. “Some,” he says, “somehow, observe the day, but are vexed, I believe, that the body of the people profane it; and blessed be God!”
Cotton Mather and other leaders of the Pilgrims pronounced as “blasphemy” the keeping of “Holy Days.” They resented the forms of English celebrations, which, no doubt, fell at times to the level of boisterous revelry that were a discredit to religion. They wanted no “wanton Bacchanalian Christmases,” spent “dicing, carding, masking (taking part in a masquerade), mumming (superstitious ceremonies), consumed in compotations (drinking, carousing), in interludes, in excess of wine, in mad mirth.” If they stopped there, the sympathies of most Christians would be on their side. But these dour immigrants to New England, who were known by their gait, dark clothing, lank hair, and sour demeanor, did not want any merry-making at Christmas whatsoever, for they hated all things Catholic, as the Devil hates holy water. Because of their Puritanical hatred of Christmas, Thanksgiving was made a prominent holiday. All the usual foods associated with Christmas in “Merri England” were rejected in favor of the indigenous turkey, Indian pudding, and pumpkin pie. Christmas carols were tabooed.
In England the anti-Catholic feeling against the “popish” practice of celebrating Christmas culminated in the Roundhead (Puritan) Parliament (1643) abolishing saints’ days, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. They even went so far as to destroy Holly and Mistletoe plants associated with Christmas, claiming that such plants were of the Evil One.
The enemies of the greatest Christian feast of the year attacked these and many more innocent joys, merely because they were of Catholic origin. Cromwell and his Puritans in England and on this side of the Atlantic are no more. On the other hand, the Church and the holy feast of Christmas continues to flourish in certain circles and do honor to the Babe of Bethlehem on December 25 of each year.
While Christmas is no longer banned in America or England, it is under serious attack, not only by modern paganistic and commercializing practices, but by the Anti-Christian left doing everything they can to remove all semblance of Christmas from our society.
What’s going on here? The flagrant attempt to remove Christ from Christmas would never be permitted if applied to the holy days of any other religion. So much for religious “tolerance.” Christians must have the courage to speak out against these outrages.