Is Christmas a Radical Holiday?

"Also much as it is today, it was a period of carousing and merriment. The weeks around Christmas were celebrated with feasting, drinking, singing, and games. Mummers would blacken their faces and dress up in costumes, often in the clothes of the opposite sex, to perform plays in the streets or in homes. Carolers, too, would sing door to door as well as in the home. Wealthy lords threw open their manors, inviting local peasants and villagers inside to gorge on food and drink. Groups of young men called wassailers would march in and demand to be feasted or given gifts of money in exchange for their good wishes and songs."

"Puritans detested these sorts of activities, grumbling that Christmas was observed with more revelry than piety. Worse, they contended that there was no scriptural warrant for the celebration of Jesus's birth. Puritans argued, not incorrectly, that Christmas represented nothing more than a thin Christian veneer slapped on a pagan celebration. Believing in the holiday was superstitious at best, heretical at worst. When the Puritans rebelled against King Charles I, inciting the English Revolution, the popular celebration of Christmas was on their hit list. Victorious against the king, in 1647, the Puritan government actually canceled Christmas. Not only were traditional expressions of merriment strictly forbidden, but shops were also ordered to stay open, churches were shut down and ministers arrested for preaching on Christmas Day."

Christmas in early seventeenth-century England centered on communal feasting, drinking, singing, mumming, cross-dressed performances, door-to-door caroling, manor-house entertainments, and wassailers demanding gifts or feasts. These popular customs blended seasonal merriment with older, non-Christian elements and emphasized social mixing between classes. Puritans condemned the festivities as irreligious and superstitious, arguing the celebration lacked scriptural basis and masked pagan origins. After rebelling against King Charles I, Puritan authorities moved to suppress Christmas, outlawing traditional revelry, keeping shops open, closing churches, and arresting ministers who preached on December 25. Some Puritans carried these prohibitions to New England.

Read at www.esquire.com