Christmas a Banned Celebration

In England “the Protestant found their own quieter ways of celebrating, in calm and meditation”, while “the strict Puritans refused to celebrate at all saying that no celebration should be more important than the Sabbath. The Pilgrims in Massachusetts made a point of working on Christmas as on any other day.

On June 3, 1647, Parliament established punishments for observing Christmas and certain other holidays. This policy was reaffirmed in 1652. . . “(Gerard and Patricia Del Re, p. 20).

Even colonial America considered Christmas more of a raucous revelry than a religious occasion. “So tarnished, in fact, was its reputation in colonial America that celebrating Christmas was banned in Puritan New England, where the note minister Cotton Mather described yuletide merrymaking as ‘an affront unto the grace of God’” (Jeffrey Sheler, U.S.. News & World Report, “In Search of Christmas, “ Dec. 23,, 1996, p. 56).

The reason Christmas has survived and grown into such a popular holiday - it is observed by 96 percent of Americans and almost all nations, even atheistic ones (Sheler, p. 56) – is because of economic factor (see “How Christmas Grew”).

(taken from Holidays or Holy Days Does it Matter,p.6, 2006 reprint)