December 23, 2022
Christmas was Banned?!?

Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas to All!

The Puritans

Christmas under the Commonwealth,
A Puritan rebuking children for the idolatry of picking holly.
(Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Puritans were not big fans of holidays in general, and not fans of Christmas specifically. This might seem counterintuitive for a group of devout Christians, causing one to ask "Why?".

Well, it turns out they had several reasons. The Puritans felt life should be lived solely according to the Bible, and the Bible didn’t reference celebrating Christ’s birth at all. "Scripture did not name any holiday except the Sabbath, they argued, and the very concept of "holy days" implied that some days were not holy. 'They for whom all days are holy can have no holiday,' was a common Puritan maxim." (The Week Staff)

The Puritans believed that ultimately Christmas had its roots in Paganism. "The noted Puritan minister Increase Mather wrote that Christmas occurred on December 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].'" (Klein)

Another reason and perhaps the main one, was that the holiday often descended into bawdy drunkenness. There was a popular Christmas tradition called "wassailing", and this tradition involved the poor going door-to-door requesting food and drink in exchange for toasting the occupants good health. "If refused, the hosts would suffer a great deal of mischief or even violence." (Wertz)

Mather in 1688, when he was in London. Portrait by John van der Spriett.

The Law

Yes, you read that correctly – from 1659 until 1681, it was officially illegal to observe Christmas in Boston by taking the day off from work, feasting, or celebrating in any other way.

The Fine

The fine for breaking the law was 5 shillings in 1659. This was about what a skilled tradesman would make in 3 days; a hefty fine that would certainly dampen one's holiday spirit. Fortunately, there is no evidence that anyone was ever actually fined, even though many still celebrated Christmas privately in their homes. The law ultimately had achieved the desired effect though, as the raucous and rowdy days of drunken celebration were over.

The Holiday

The ban on Christmas was finally lifted in 1681, but it was the middle of the 1800s,1856 to be exact, when Christmas finally became an official holiday in Massachusetts.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow noted a "transition state about Christmas" in New England that year. "The old Puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful, hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so," he wrote.

daguerreotype of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Southworth & Hawes c1850

Christmas Day was formally declared a federal holiday
by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870.

Sources used for this Musing are listed below.

Hayden, Meg, Massachusetts Law Banning Christmas, Commonwealth of Massachusetts website, December 16, 2014, accessed December 23, 2022

History.com Editors, The War on Christmas, History.com website, October 30, 2017, accessed December 23, 2022

Klein, Christopher, When Massachusetts banned Christmas, History.com website, December 22, 2015, accessed December 23, 2022

Wertz, Frederick, When Boston banned Christmas, Irish Central website, December 12, 2022, accessed December 23, 2022

The Week Staff, When Americans banned Christmas, The Week website, January 8, 2015, accessed December 23, 2022