Each year, Americans talk about a “War on Christmas”—a systemic effort to remove Christmas from the Christmas season. “Happy Holidays” replacing “Merry Christmas” and the elimination of references to Christ’s birth altogether are seen as evidence of this, but Christmas still lives on—even if it’s not always explicitly mentioned in popular culture.
In the earliest days of the American colonies, however, there was an war on Christmas, complete with hefty fines for anyone caught celebrating it. This is the Forgotten History of America's First War on Christmas.
Christmas in England and its American colonies in the 1600s was a joyous affair filled with celebratory church services, large feasts, gift exchanges at New Year’s, and 12 full days of parties.
Entire towns would come together to dance, sing, play games, and drink…a lot. Wild, drunken debauchery was common and something both peasants and the nobility alike looked forward to all year.
The Puritans, however, didn’t. They believed that Christmas had become less about Christ’s birth than an excuse to drink, and they were disgusted.
As one Puritan clergyman wrote, “Men dishonor Christ more in the 12 days of Christmas than in all the 12 months besides."
One of the most popular traditions of the time was “mumming”—also known as “wassailing”—in which groups of people (known as “mummers”) would wear costumes and wander from house to house, singing, dancing, and performing short plays in exchange for food and drink from wealthy lords. The most popular mumming costumes—and the ones the Puritans despised the most—were when men dressed up as women.
This was simply unacceptable.
The Puritans believed strongly that one should live in accordance with the Bible—solemnly, prayerfully, and above all, temperately. They loathed what the celebration of Christmas had become, and in England petitioned King Charles to change the rules of worship so that the holiday would become more spiritual and less, well, festive.
In America, the year after Puritan Pilgrims settled Plymouth Colony, Governor William Bradford noted in his journal that “on the day called Christmas-day, the Governor called them out to work, (as was used) but the most of this new company excused themselves, and said it went against their consciences to work on that day.”
Bradford obliged, but “when they came home at noon, from their work, he found them in the street at play openly; some pitching the bar, and some at stool-ball, and such like sports. So he went to them, and took away their implements, and told them, that was against his conscience, that they should play, and others work; if they made the keeping of it matter of devotion, let them keep their houses, but there should be no gaming, or reveling in the streets.”
No one in Plymouth Colony celebrated Christmas for another 20 years.
Across the Atlantic, when Puritan revolutionary Oliver Cromwell deposed and then executed King Charles in 1649, he banned Christmas celebrations altogether.
American Puritans were emboldened and all across New England started to enact similar Christmas bans. In Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1659, they even imposed a large fine of five shillings for anyone caught making merry at Christmastime.
For 21 years, Christmas was essentially outlawed. Puritans marked it as they marked every other day; by working, praying, and solemnly living. When the monarchy in England was restored, though, Christmas was too, and there was considerable pressure from both the Crown and Parliament to bring Christmas back to the colonies as well.
In 1681, Massachusetts Bay Colony finally bowed to this pressure and overturned the five shilling fine, but many Puritan residents sill didn’t celebrate Christmas.
The rest of the colonies started to, but for one hundred years, Christmas wasn’t an official holiday in America. The Puritan legacy of eschewing wild celebrations, or any celebrations for that matter, in favor of working and praying on Christmas Day lived on after colonies won their independence.
The very first United States Congress held a session on December 25th, 1789.
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