How the English Monarchy Saved Christmas

This is the article I wrote for the Noble House newsletter this year. They have now published it, so I can share it with you:

“We’ve all seen animated Christmas shows with titles like “How Rudolph Saved Christmas” or some such thing.  There actually was a time when Christmas needed to be saved, and the monarchy in England saved it!

The first civil war in England was between the Puritans and the monarchy in 1642-1646. The Puritans were trying to purify the Church of England from all the Catholic traditions they deemed excessive, including Christmas, Easter, and some of the saints’ days.  They were against Christmas because of its pagan origins.  Rome had a winter festival one week before the solstice called Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture.  They celebrated with lots of food and drink.  Also, the upper echelons of soldiers and government officials celebrated the birth of Mithra on December 25th.  When the Catholic church became predominant, rather than trying to do away with these festivals, they adopted December 25th as the birth of Jesus and incorporated the pagan celebrations into the celebration of Christmas.  The Norse had a festival on December 21st called Yule where they brought in evergreens, decorated them with apples (the first ornaments), and burned a Yule log.  In the Church of England, Christmas festivities lasted from December 25th through January 6th (or Twelfth Day) and included feasting, gambling, drinking, and masquerade balls.  The Puritans won the first civil war in England and banned Christmas.  

The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony belonged to a sect of Puritans called the Separatists. They regarded December 25th as just another work day and, in fact, began building the first house in the colony on that date. The only day that was sacred to them was the Sabbath. In 1659, a law was passed in Massachusetts Bay Colony that said that anyone who tried to celebrate Christmas in any way, including not working on that day, would be fined five shillings.

It’s no wonder the stern Puritans banned any form of Christmas celebration.  Many of the colonies in New England celebrated by drinking, feasting, mumming or “masking”, and wassailing.  Mumming was a tradition of going from house to house in costume and performing or putting on plays while wassailing was going from house to house, drinking from bowls of spiced ale or mulled wine, and singing.  Christmas was not for children as it is now, but it was full of adult activities like parties, feasts, hunts, balls, and church services.  They decorated their homes and churches with evergreens: holly, ivy, mountain laurel, and mistletoe.  This frivolity would never do for the Puritans.

For centuries in the British Isles, it was believed that the Holy Spirit rose on Christmas and evil spirits would conspire against it, so people put out garlic to keep the evil spirits away.  Then they would sit around a fire and tell ghost stories.  Victorian England had printing presses and periodicals and published these stories.  Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” as a serial in a weekly periodical in 1843.  

In 1681, the monarchy was restored and Christmas returned to England.  The Puritans in the Massachusetts Colony finally repealed the ban on Christmas.  Over the years, Christmas had become more family-friendly, and in 1870, Congress declared Christmas to be a national holiday.  That’s how Christmas was saved!”

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