When celebrating Christmas was
against the law
By Val Lauder
updated
2:14 PM EST, Wed December 24, 2014
A
Christmas party, circa 1890. By contrast, the Puritan influence kept Christmas
a staid affair in New England for centuries.
Editor's note: Val
Lauder, a former reporter for the Chicago Daily News and lecturer at the School
of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, is the author of "The Back Page: The Personal Face of
History." The opinions
expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- History has its
holy wars. Economic wars. Civil wars. World wars. Six-Day War. Hundred Years'
War. The latter a toddler on the line of time compared with the Christmas war.
Almost 1,700 years -- and counting -- on when, and how, to celebrate Christmas.
If, at all.
We're not talking the Grinch here. Stealing Christmas.
No, no, no. Obliteration. Elimination. Eradication.
In the early centuries of Christianity's existence,
there was no consensus on the date of Jesus' birth, or even on whether the day,
whatever it was, should be celebrated as a holiday.
Elesha Coffman, writing in Christianity Today, notes that early Christians
contended that the date was, variously, May 20, April 18, April 19, May 28,
January 2, November 17, November 20, March 12 and March 25 -- and that December
25 probably didn't emerge as the favored date until late in the third century.
That, intentionally or not, grafted the new Christmas
onto the old Saturnalia, the most popular celebration of Roman times. The
seven-day festival that started December 17 to honor the god Saturn and welcome
the winter solstice gave us today's tradition of holiday greenery, gift giving
and the office party (or variations thereof), for the Saturnalia was a time of
much drinking, some carousing, certainly unrestrained revelry.
The yin and yang of that has come down to us through
the centuries and can be seen today in the battles over the commercialization
of Christmas, the popularity of yuletide parties, too many martinis oiling the
voices raised in song. A little too much "God Rest Ye Merry
Gentlemen" and not enough "O Holy Night."
Having enjoyed wonderfully merry and happy Christmases
through the years, as I was growing up and making my way in the world, I took
those concerns in stride and kept "Ho! Ho! Ho!" at the ready. Then,
in my early 40s, when I was living in New England, while leafing through a book
as part of my research for a story, I hit the subtopic: Christmas Under the
Ban. Because it happened to be facing a page with an old-fashioned illustration
of a little girl standing under a living room archway trimmed with greenery, I
thought the rope of greens was the ban…
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