War on tradition

[ashling]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/opinion/the-puritan-war-on-christmas.xml
http://mobile.nytimes.com/h/Ucndih5oE6gOFUJ7vdXy02Y8agrylPtMTKAtA6tgZPIj6z8drLT0U2XihV4isB4TLgVDDukoZOup_yLniESZaobh4J-QGDLj6_668zfI379tcI4zIrvaXCFWcK2hBn9Aeekz2jqSsqED2DM*.cr

The Puritans who came to America naturally shared these sentiments. As the Massachusetts minister Increase Mather explained in 1687, Christmas was observed on Dec. 25 not because "Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian" ones. So naturally, official suppression of Christmas was foundational to the godly colonies in New England.

On their first Christmas in the New World, the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony celebrated the holiday not at all. Instead they worked in the fields. One year, the colony's governor, William Bradford, yelled at visitors to the colony who, unaware that Christmas was celebrated more in the absence than in the commemoration, were taking the day off. He found them "in the streete at play, openly; some pitching the barr, and some at stoole-ball, and shuch like sports." After that incident, no one again tried to take off work for Christmas in the colony.

The Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony went one step further and actually outlawed the celebration of Christmas. From 1659 to 1681, anyone caught celebrating Christmas in the colony would be fined five shillings.

Well into the 18th century, those who attempted to keep the tradition of wassailing alive in New England often found themselves arrested and fined. Indeed, the Puritan War on Christmas lasted up to 1870, when Christmas became a legally recognized federal holiday. Until then, men and women were expected to go to work, stores were expected to remain open, and many churches did not even hold religious services.

So the next time someone maintains that they are defending traditional American values by denouncing the War on Christmas, remind them of our 17th-century Puritan forefathers who refused to condone any celebration or even observance of the holiday. In America, our oldest Christmas tradition is, in fact, the War on Christmas.