Christmas In Puritan New England
Christmas celebrations in Puritan New England (1620–1850?) were culturally and legally suppressed and thus, virtually non-existent. The Puritan community found no Scriptural justification for celebrating Christmas, and associated such celebrations with paganism and idolatry. The earliest years of the Plymouth colony were troubled with non-Puritans attempting to make merry, and Governor William Bradford was forced to reprimand offenders. English laws suppressing the holiday were enacted in the Interregnum, but repealed late in the 17th century. However, the Puritan view of Christmas and its celebration had gained cultural ascendancy in New England, and Christmas celebrations continued to be discouraged despite being legal. When Christmas became a Federal holiday in 1870, the Puritan view was relaxed and late nineteenth-century Americans fashioned the day into the Christmas of commercialism, liberal spirituality, and nostalgia that most Americans recognize today.
Read more about Christmas In Puritan New England: The Puritan View of Christmas, Christmas in Puritan New England, Legacy, Notes
Famous quotes containing the words christmas, puritan and/or england:
“Please to put a nickel,
Please to put a dime.
How petitions trickle
In at Christmas time!”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)
“The Puritan through Life’s sweet garden goes
To pluck the thorn and cast away the rose.”
—Kenneth Hare (1888–1962)
“Think how stood the white pine tree on the shore of the Chesuncook, its branches soughing with the four winds, and every individual needle trembling in the sunlight,—think how it stands with it now,—sold, perchance, to the New England Friction-Match Company!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)