Christmas seems like an untouchable tradition. But there was a time when it was actually illegal in parts of New England. Yes, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, lawmakers passed a statute that fined anyone who celebrated Christmas. They did so for a few interesting reasons. What were they & why was it repealed? Let’s find out.
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Key takeaways
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- What the 1659 law actually said & how it defined “celebrating”
- Why Puritan leaders decided to create it
- How people reacted & what daily life looked like under the ban
- When & why the law was repealed
The law
On May 11, 1659, the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s General Court passed a law that banned Christmas. It explicitly stated that “observing any such day as Christmas or the like” was banned. Ouch.
What counts as a celebration? Well, the law also made that clear. You couldn’t skip work or hold a feast on this day. You couldn’t, “in any other way,” treat December 25th as special, with the penalty for doing so being five shillings, paid to the county. Under the law, December 25th was just another workday, so schools & businesses stayed open.
But this wasn’t a blanket ban across all the colonies, as the law applied only to Massachusetts Bay. It lasted from 1659 until 1681. This meant that, during those years, Boston & neighboring towns simply ignored Christmas. They couldn’t have any kind of decorations or any sort of festivities. Yikes.
Why Puritan lawmakers pushed it
Such a strict law seems quite strange these days, especially coming from a Christian group. But Puritan leaders had two main reasons for their ban, which they shared during sermons & pamphlets, as well as their official writings. These were:
- There was no biblical backing
- Christmas was too rowdy
The Puritans argued that there was nothing in the Scripture stating that they should have a Christmas feast or that they should celebrate this day in any form. As such, they saw it as a human invention & something sinful.
Plus, in England, Christmas wasn’t the holiday that it is today. It was much more connected with drinking & disorderly behavior, with none of the religious side of things. One of these traditions was wassailing, which involved groups going door-to-door singing. They’d ask for food & drink, sometimes money, too.
But this tradition often turned messy when people didn’t get what they wanted. They’d break property or even threaten the homeowners, too.
Another old tradition was mumming, which featured people doing costumed performances & skits. This meant there were many noisy crowds taking over the streets. Puritan officials saw that as a recipe for disorder & they were determined to cut it off early. They wanted none of this behavior in their towns.
Reactions to the rule
Naturally, not everyone agreed with the rule. But people who wanted to celebrate had to keep it private by either working as usual or quietly keeping to themselves, although there isn’t much evidence of open resistance.
In most frontier towns, many families preferred Thanksgiving or other local religious days over December 25th. A few of them did bake extra bread & brew spiced cider on this day. But none of it was framed as “Christmas.”
The idea of canceling Christmas also didn’t start in Massachusetts. A decade earlier, the English Parliament banned the holiday in 1647 during the Civil War. They believed that December 25th should be a day of prayer & fasting, not parties or feasts. Since the colonists in Massachusetts still believed in those ideas, it wasn’t much of a surprise that they passed their own version in 1659.
It also wasn’t a popular law. In fact, in Virginia, Christmas carried on more or less as usual, with people feasting & singing carols without worrying about fines. Maryland was founded as a haven for Catholics. As a result, it had less Puritan influence, too, so people continued celebrating.
Why the ban didn’t last
After 22 years, the rule eventually disappeared, thanks to the General Court repealing it in 1681. But traditions didn’t flip overnight. Many New Englanders kept treating December 25th as an ordinary day.
It also took almost two hundred years for Massachusetts to swing the other way. In 1856, the state passed Chapter 113, which officially named December 25th as a holiday to be observed across the Commonwealth. It’s been a special day ever since.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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