In modern times, certain groups believe Christmas is constantly being threatened by secular forces that want to ban the holiday for good. However, 400 years ago, Christmas’s biggest enemy was actually one of the most devout groups of Christians in the world: the Puritans.
To understand why the Puritans banned Christmas, it helps to understand what Christmas in the 1600s was like. Today, Christmas is one of the more family-friendly holidays, focusing on wholesome fun and togetherness along with religious devotion. But the holiday originates from pagan solstice festivals, and Christmas in the 1600s was a lot more like Mardi Gras than the Christmas we celebrate today. A typical 1600s Christmas celebration included plenty of drinking, feasting, dice-throwing, and good old-fashioned licentious behavior.
One earlier Christmas tradition was “wassailing,” when less prosperous members of the community would visit their wealthy neighbors and ask for favors. If they were denied, things could turn violent. If you’ve ever listened to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and thought “now bring us some figgy pudding, we won’t go until we get some” sounds ominous, this would be why.
Christmas was popular among more mainstream sects of Christians in the 1600s, but, because Puritanism was founded on rejecting the perceived excesses of mainstream Christianity, raucous Christmas celebrations were never going to fly. The Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature officially banned the holiday on May 11, 1659, with a fine of five shillings for anyone caught celebrating it.
The Puritans repealed the ban in 1681, but only because of pressure to make the colony’s laws match England’s laws. Bay Staters still mostly held a low opinion of the holiday until the middle of the 19th century, when books like The Christmas Carol made the holiday more popular.
