Why Was Christmas Banned?

[appalachiablue]

In the 17th century, Christmas was completely banned in England and its territories, for 17 years. Shops were forced to stay open, public Christmas drinking and festive feasting were illegal, mince pies were seized, even putting up foliage as decoration was banned. Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out why a parliament full of protestant Puritans would make celebrating Christmas illegal. (Pub. Dec. 13, 2019).

- Christmas was banned in Scotland for nearly 400 years, until 1957.
A 1640 Act of the Parliament of Scotland abolished the "Yule vacation and all observation thereof in time coming".
Christmas in Scotland was traditionally observed very quietly, because the Church of Scotland – a Presbyterian church – for various reasons never placed much emphasis on the Christmas festival. Christmas Day only became a public holiday in 1958 in Scotland and Boxing Day in 1974. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_Scotland

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Yes, we should all study Cromwell since we could wind up with a Lord Protector or Interregnum here

I doubt Trump will go peacefully, and certainly his followers won't.

[appalachiablue]

2. No telling what's in store, another theocracy I hope not

[soldierant]

3. I always understood that the "date" of Christmas

was calculated by a monk in the sixth or eighth century on this basis:

All time begins from the seven days during which God created the universe.

The first of those days must therefore be the same day on which each year begins.

The year begins on March 25 (well, it did then).

But that day must also be the same day on which the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, since that event was a new beginning.

Nine months after March 25th is December 25.

And, of course, the fact that this date is around the Winter Solstice, when the weather precludes doing much of anything fun outdoors, and to some extent even indoors, and therefore humanity is in desperate need of something to celebrate - with the result that pretty well every culture has a holiday around then - that was just the frosting on the fruitcake.

[Karadeniz]

4. Mithras was born on Dec 25, as well as being born from a virgin. The wine part of the Mithraic

Ceremony reads almost identical to that part of Christian communion.