The Christians will attend special church services and public places will be decorated with holly, rosemary and Ivy. John Wilson Rosamond “The Puritan Governor interrupting the Christmas Sports,” by Howard Pyle c. 1883 Public Domain A short, easily-overlooked paragraph from an early law book of the Massachusetts Bay Colony reads as follows: “For preventing disorders arising… They first discouraged Yuletide festivities and later outright banned them. The Puritans, it turns out, were not too keen on the holiday. Two images of the mid-17th century Christmas stick in the mind. The Puritan War on Christmas 'Trappings of popery and rags of the beast'. Did you know, when was Christmas celebrated first? In the American colonies the result was more complicated. In the first half of the 17th Century, December 25th was a public holiday and all working places will be closed. Many Puritans fled to the American Colonies under the early reign of Elizabeth I, and Boston was a stronghold on Puritan belief. The Puritans are often accused of banning Christmas, and although the House of Commons did sit on Christmas Day during the English Republic, Dr Stephen Roberts felt the need to do a little myth-busting about the wholesale cancellation of Christmas during the interregnum, by way of the Christmas dinner table…. Cromwell remembered Cromwell is the subject of two listed statues: he stands outside the House of Commons in Westminster as well as perching atop the plinth at Market Hill in St Ives. Thus, during the Puritan Revolution in England in the 1600s, Puritans banned special church services on December 25 and mandated that businesses remain open. Still, the Puritans held Christmas at bay, decade after cheerless decade, until Massachusetts finally made Christmas a legal holiday in 1856—almost 200 years after it was banned… Puritans also disapproved of the wild partying that seemed widespread on Christmas Day in England. The Puritan ban on Christmas lasted much longer in New England, on paper from 1659 to 1681. Nevertheless the Puritans' prohibition of Christmas proved very unpopular, and pro-Christmas riots broke out. Chris Durston | Published in History Today Volume 35 Issue 12 December 1985. It was restored as a … Well, the first recorded Christmas celebration happened in Rome in 336 AD. Mince-pies, mummers, holly and church services all fell victim to a determined Puritan attempt to stamp out the celebration of Christmas under the Commonwealth. All Holy Days were banned in Boston, including Christmas and Easter, from 1659-1681. 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