The Surprising Truth: Christians Once Banned Christmas

[cleanhippie]

It may seem like Christmas has always been celebrated in the United States, but that's not the case. In fact, the joyous religious holiday was actually banned in America for several decades – by Christians themselves.

The original war on Christmas was waged during the sixteenth and seventeenth century by Puritans, or Protestant Christians who believed that people needed strict rules to be religious and that any kind of merrymaking was sinful.

"Shocking as it sounds, followers of Jesus Christ in both America and England helped pass laws making it illegal to observe Christmas, believing it was an insult to God to honor a day associated with ancient paganism," according to "Shocked by the Bible" (Thomas Nelson Inc, 2008). "Most Americans today are unaware that Christmas was banned in Boston from 1659 to 1681."

All Christmas activities, including dancing, seasonal plays, games, singing carols, cheerful celebration – and especially drinking – were banned by the Puritan-dominated Parliament of England in 1644, with the Puritans of New England following suit. Christmas was outlawed in Boston, and the Plymouth colony made celebrating Christmas a criminal offense, according to "Once Upon a Gospel" (Twenty-Third Publications, 2008).

Christmas trees and decorations were considered to be unholy pagan rituals, and the Puritans also banned traditional Christmas foods such as mince pies and pudding. Puritan laws required that stores and businesses remain open all day on Christmas, and town criers walked through the streets on Christmas Eve calling out "No Christmas, no Christmas!"

In England, the ban on the holiday was lifted in 1660, when Charles II took over the throne. However, the Puritan presence remained in New England and Christmas did not become a legal holiday there until 1856. Even then, some schools continued to hold classes on December 25 until 1870.

Although the change was gradual, people began to once again embrace the holiday until Christmas as we know it today – complete with mistletoe, eggnog and candy canes – was celebrated throughout the American colonies.

http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/why-was-christmas-banned-in-america--1198/

[WolverineDG]

1. no shit, really?

:eyes:

dg

[mrcheerful]

7. Actually the way we celebrate xmas today is different then the way it was celebrated for most of

the countries history. After the stock market crash of 1929 Macy's department store and Hollywood got together to put a little movie together called "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" to help Macy's drive up year end sales, which started todays practice of xmas gift giving. Remember Santa was a Norse myth before he was brought to America and even that was changed by Macy's as Santa from what reading I have done left sweets and/or fruit in good children's stockings hung on the mantle to dry out bad kids got a lump of coal. Those that practiced gift giving from other European countries were usually parents who gave kids stuff they needed for school or sunday services, but the ideal of giving everyone you know a gift was purely Macy's influence on the holiday as well as the nature of the gifts.

[struggle4progress]

17. That can't quite be right, since O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi" was published in 1905

http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html

[Boojatta]

23. Good catch.

I suppose that two related quotes are:

"The essence of tragedy is a beautiful theory that is ruined by an ugly fact."

and

"People are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts."

[WolverineDG]

28. it's completely incorrect

http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/

dg

[struggle4progress]

30. Of course, "Santa Claus" is a corruption "Sain'Ni cholas" whose saint day is 6 December:

a poor man had three daughters but could not afford a proper dowry for them ... Hearing of the poor man's plight, Nicholas decided to help him ... In one version ... Nicholas learns of the poor man's plan and drops the third bag down the chimney instead; a variant holds that the daughter had washed her stockings that evening and hung them over the embers to dry, and that the bag of gold fell into the stocking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas#Legends_and_folklore

[WolverineDG]

27. try "Miracle on 34th Street"

& as for gift-giving & Santa Claus, those were already present in the 1860s (ever read the "Little House" books?). And actually, the crux of "Miracle on 34th Street" was anti-commercialization of Christmas, not the other way around, seeing as how Kris Kringle works for Macys & sends people to Gimbels & other stores.

Not sure what you've read, but I'm thinking it's not quite accurate.

"Yes Virginia" is an actual editorial, btw.

dg

[mrcheerful]

31. Yeah that is the movie I was thinking and I was wrong as it sems the way we celebrate christmas

started in the 1880's. Here is the wiki link.........http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_did_Americans_start_celebrating_Christmas

I was actually going by what my grand father told me about how Macy's changed the way his family celebrated Christmas and how he detested Macy's for making Christmas about greed. Most of the things I have read were about how most people in the 1800's wouldn't put up a tree because they only had candles to light them with, yeah great ideal, lets go chop a pine tree down, take it home to our log cabin and put candles and paper decorations on it. Have to admit Americans weren't the brightest people in the early days.

[WolverineDG]

35. Then the Germans weren't either

since the Christmas tree is of German origin.

dg

[Odin2005]

48. Santa is often associated with Odin. :-)

well, I do look and sound like a younger version of Santa! :rofl:

[Kucinich Feingold]

50. Really?

[Odin2005]

51. Ya rly!!!

[Drale]

2. The Puritains where much like the tea baggers today

that is that they want to take all the fun out of life.

[DCKit]

3. Can't stand anyone else having a modicum of fun. nt

[mikekj]

4. That's because.......

Christmas has nothing to do with the birth of Christ. This holiday date was/is a pagan holiday date.

[Angry Dragon]

5. I do not know when it was adopted

But Easter was the more important holiday to the church than Christmas
Christmas was at the beginning a forgotten holiday
So the church has no business getting on people about their anti-christmas

[toddwv]

8. Easter is also a pagan holiday.

Estre, the goddess of fertility.



If a 'holiday' occurs near a solstice, you can pretty much guarantee that it has a long-standing pagan heritage.

[struggle4progress]

13. The paschal feast, and its date, is closely connected with judaism, a mediterranean religion,

for which pagan germanic influences are unlikely. The attempt to replace christian holidays by real or imagined pagan germanic holidays appears to be volkish propaganda from the first half of the twentieth century

[Bad Thoughts]

15. Wrong!

There's an umlaut in völkisch. Everything else I agree with.

[jberryhill]

21. Gesundheit

I hope you see a doctor about that condition.

[toddwv]

24. So where do bunnies and eggs fit into Judaic tradition?

Just curious.

[struggle4progress]

25. My remark was specific and limited

[struggle4progress]

26. The egg is very ancient tradition: here is St Augustine

SERMON LV.

ON THE WORDS OF THE GOSPEL, LUKE XI. 5, "WHICH OF YOU SHALL HAVE A FRIEND,
AND SHALL GO UNTO HIM AT MIDNIGHT," ETC.
... 7. There remains hope, which, as I think, is compared to an egg. For hope
has not yet arrived at attainment; and an egg is something, but not yet the
chicken. So then quadrupeds give birth to young ones, but birds to the hope
of young. Hope therefore exhorts us to this, to despise things present, to
wait for things to come ... It is an egg, and not as yet the chicken. And it is
covered with a shell; it is not seen because it is covered; let it be with
patience waited for; let it feel the warmth, that it may come to life ...
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PATRISTC/PNI6-10.TXT

Augustine is mostly in Roman Africa and hence unlikely to be muchg influenced by German paganism

[struggle4progress]

29. Bunnies have essentially nothing to do with Easter tradition: they seem to have arisen

in sixteenth century German folklore, and the natural guess would be that the "bunny laying eggs" is a scatological joke

[trotsky]

33. Human beings were celebrating astronomically-related events for millenia.

Christianity and Judaism and pretty much every religion we even know about all piggybacked on these special days. Talk about propaganda. :eyes:

[Bad Thoughts]

34. Piggybacked?

Did Western Mithraism piggyback on Roman cults? Did Buddhism piggyback on Hinduism and then Taoism? Did Islam piggyback on Christianity and Judaism? Did Baha'i piggyback on everything in Persia? Did Voodoo piggyback on both Catholicism and spiritualism?

Or do people of a culture share values and ideas that they use to build their beliefs and knowledge systems?

[trotsky]

36. Yes, piggybacked.

Christianity in particular didn't spread by peacefully integrating with local customs and culture - it destroyed what it could and co-opted what it couldn't. I am not sure where you got your rose-colored glasses through which you view religious history.

[Bad Thoughts]

37. Not rose-colored

Historically accurate: none of the things you listed were unique to the spread of belief systems in that era. I recommend reading up on the 3th century Roman emperors, particularly Julian, and the use of religion to support state power.

[WolverineDG]

41. or Joseph Campbell's Greek mythology

ever wonder why Zeus screwed around so much? Yup, them pagans were going around "stealing" other pagan's holidays.

dg

[trotsky]

45. I'm sorry, you appear to be arguing with this guy:

Good luck!

[El Supremo]

6. The Nativity was nothing to cheer about.

Mary was pregnant and had never had relations with Joseph.
They were forced to travel to Bethlehem for a census.
There was no room at the inn and they had to go to a stable (or cave).
Herod was looking for Jesus and killed all the male children under two.
They then had to flee to Egypt.

It wasn't a happy time. Why we make merry about it is strange.

[mrcheerful]

9. The birth of the Chirst child is why it was we celebrate today though in all likely hood

no one celebrated his birth except friends and family until hundreds of years after his death.

[provis99]

18. everything you just wrote is historically wrong.

-Jesus had an elder brother, James. Where do you think he came from, if Mary was a virgin?
-Roman censuses were held in Summer, not winter, so Christmas is on the wrong date.
-They were not looking for a place at an inn; it was a family house, and mangers of the time occupied the first floor of the family house, as animals were brought inside during the night. So they slept in the first floor of Joseph's family house.
-Herod was not ruler in Bethlehem, as that was part of Roman Judea, over which he had no jurisdiction. The massacre of the Innocents is also not mentioned in any other historical source.
-other sources, such as the Protoevangelium of James, and the Gospel of Luke, either do not mention any flight to Egypt, or reject it.

[El Supremo]

19. Boy! You sure got me.

You sure did!

[demosincebirth]

10. That was only one small part of the Christian world. you talk about

[struggle4progress]

11. Puritanism -- the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy

H. L. Mencken

[Warpy]

12. The Puritans really hated to see anyone having a good time, BUT

if you've ever researched the diet in those colonies, you've noticed there was a great deal of wine, beer, mead and rum being drunk by everyone as their main source of fluids. Those people might have been dour and joyless in their laws and worship but they were BLOTTO most of the time.

I'm sure living that sort of life was quite tolerable if you did it trashed.

[monmouth]

14. Sounds like they were mean drunks....n/t

[onager]

40. Puritan legal research is even more interesting.

I saw a woman on the History Channel who spent years researching legal files from Puritan New England.

There was a WHOLE lot of illegal sex going on, besides the expected garden-variety adultery and fornication. She mentioned a huge number of trials for bestiality, plus many convictions for sodomy, incest, what we would call "statutory rape" of minors nowadays, etc. etc.

[RandomThoughts]

16. It is common for people to make things sacrid to elevate there postioins.

If you think pine cones are sacred, or they have a meaning to you, and you are appointed to teach about pine cones, then the more reverence the pine cones get, the more reverence you think you have.

Those actions seem to be an offshoot of self righteousness.


I like the phrase, 'be good for goodness sake' not for reward or punishment, but because it seems to be the right things to do. However many teachings can help people learn what is better, and feel through those things, some teachings try to remove those feelings.


If it feels good do it, only applies if 'feeling good' is complete love. Many people equate 'feeling good' as self love, where it becomes selfish or hurtful to others.

Why don't you cheat on a girlfriend, because it would hurt her when she finds out, and would hurt you to keep the secret, both effects can create numbness.

As can no feelings that are pushed in some groups. You can see attempts to remove empathy and feeling, also showing that the state of people is not to be non feeling, but that something tried to add that into society to make people more able to be less empathetic with others, from that I figure less empathy is bad. Although empathy should be in proportion to what you are able to do, empathy can lead to helping people in worse situations and helping society, but it also creates shared feelings of suffering, so good times are important also.

Oddly, the concept of a 'group entity' that was terribly bad in Germany, since it hurt many people and had many other problems is not the only time that concept is used. Some 'group entity' also exist where a person gives up some 'self' joy for the community, but receives that back through empathy. It is better for society to be kind, that could be argued that it is also an attempt to set up a group entity. However, there is also self good feelings through empathy with other people. While only self good feelings that are part of bad society are power or control, not love.

Hence it becomes reasonable to state that most teachings, both bad and good, set up a group entity that has some goal, so it should also be those goals that are decided on.

So then the two entities can be seen more clearly, power and control without feeling, versus love and compassion with empathy. Hence the development of a two sided struggle in existence. In theory justice would be with love and compassion, since justice creates a more compassionate society by not making people have to hide to explain extreams of consolidations. The problem with 'Order' is bad groups can be orderly, order by itself has no moral component without comparing it to the thoughts of if a system is 'better' or 'worse'. If you only support order, you could have a very bad society, however in my belief that would not last, since an unjust uncompassionate system leads to disorder since most people are more just. (it is possible to have many 'trained' more unjust people, but that is a factor of bad education to preserve a bad order.)


Although there needs to be balance also, since to much empathy trying to help people, should be balanced with empathy with those in joy, including dancing and singing. Just like giving away all you have should be balanced with having some material items for a modest life. Moderation in all things really makes alot of sense.

[DeSwiss]

39. ....

http://forum.alchemyforums.com/showthread.php?86-Pine-Cone">
The Vatican's Sacred Pine Cone

[RandomThoughts]

42. I would guess that is photo shop, right?

Never heard of that before.

Found some posts on the Internet, is that really in the Vatican Museum?


That is one of the reasons not having travel money is a bit tougher, since hard to know if things are just Internet pages, or real stuff in places like that.

[DeSwiss]

43. Click the photo, it's linked to the website. n/t

[RandomThoughts]

44. I will just chalk that up to label trap, and disregard it.

Since obviously it has not changed beer and travel money situation.

Although it is possible things are getting better, and hope that is the case.

[DeSwiss]

46. Actually....

...I believe that pine cones (replete with their http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB8m85p7GsU&feature=related">Fibonacci sequences- AKA: The Golden Mean) are a symbolic representation of the pineal gland believed by the ancients to be the abode of the soul of man - the putative "Third-Eye." So this has more to do with the "mystery" aspects of http://books.google.com/books?id=jjEkEGbyhTEC&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=E.+A.+Wallis+Budge+has+noted+that+in+some+of+the+papyri+illustrating+the+entrance+of+the+souls+of+the+dead&source=bl&ots=P1OfNX4_Cy&sig=4yV54QMyBmDagLmaLY6w9CC4uCw&hl=en&ei=I-gXTf7uNMaAlAeD56XmCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=E.%20A.%20Wallis%20Budge%20has%20noted%20that%20in%20some%20of%20the%20papyri%20illustrating%20the%20entrance%20of%20the%20souls%20of%20the%20dead&f=false">Ancient Egyptian religious belief and the worship of Osiris. Of which much of the Christian religion is a syncretistic evolutionary derivative.





- If one looks for them, they'll be found quite often in ancient artwork. We've just ignored them.

[toddaa]

20. Christmas trees were forbidden when I was little

When I was a little kid, we were not allowed to have Christmas tree because it was for pagans. We celebrated Christmas, but trees were a one way ticket to hell. I vividly remember first grade, when the teacher went around the class and asked whether we had a real or artificial tree at home. I had no idea what the difference was, primarily because I wasn't quite sure what the word artificial meant, but it sounded cool, so I went with that. Of course, we didn't actually have one.

We got one the next year, after leaving the Taylorites (google it for all the gory details), but it was a tiny artificial one, which my parents would shove into the closet when relatives came over. Same for the little black and white TV.

Some memories are burned into my brain from my early childhood. All the things we were forbidden to do for fear of being shut up (again, google Taylorites). Christmas was a mindfield of does and dont's. I think around junior high is when I began to slowly grow to despise Christmas, because of all the weird memories associated with it. When you grow up in a cult, you never escape the paranoia of being found out.

I hope you're rotting in hell, John Nelson Darby, you loathesome piece of shit.

[Recursion]

22. Cotton Mather, in the 1670's, wrote a sermon...

...about how everybody was forgetting the real meaning of Christmas.

Plus ca change...

[LeftishBrit]

32. Indeed! That's what I always say when the issue comes up

The only real 'War on Christmas' was waged by what would now be called fundie Christians.

[DeSwiss]

38. K&R

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus">


- Merry Christmas from Saint Nicholaus' best bud Krampus!!!

[Odin2005]

47. Puritains hate fun, what else is new?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

49. That's a surprise only to those who don't know history

:shrug:

The Puritans, who dominated in New England, disapproved of anything that was fun.

However, the Mid-Atlantic and Southern states, where other religions predominated, celebrated the Christmas customs of their ancestors' homelands (Germany, Holland, England, etc.)

[Still Blue in PDX]

52. Many fundy churches disapprove of holidays with Pagan roots, e.g., Christmas and Easter.

I enjoy Christmas lots more now that I'm a Pagan. I celebrate both Christmas and Yule.