Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
In my first career, I worked in retail management. There were two days of the year that inspired dread: the Friday after Thanksgiving (it was not yet dubbed "Black Friday" by the media at the time) when people bought a bunch of crap that nobody needs, and the day after Christmas when people returned all that crap that nobody needs or wanted. In a word, it is "insanity."
Christmas was once banned in in the colonies and later the United States. The Surprising Truth: Christians Once Banned Christmas:
It may seem like Christmas has always been celebrated in the United
States, but that's not the case. In fact, the joyous religious holiday
was actually banned in America for several decades – by Christians
themselves.
It may seem like Christmas has always been celebrated in the United States, but that's not the case. In fact, the joyous religious holiday was actually banned in America for several decades – by Christians themselves.
The original war on Christmas was waged during the sixteenth and seventeenth century by Puritans, or Protestant Christians who believed that people needed strict rules to be religious and that any kind of merrymaking was sinful.
"Shocking as it sounds, followers of Jesus Christ in both America and England helped pass laws making it illegal to observe Christmas, believing it was an insult to God to honor a day associated with ancient paganism," according to "Shocked by the Bible" (Thomas Nelson Inc, 2008). "Most Americans today are unaware that Christmas was banned in Boston from 1659 to 1681."
All Christmas activities, including dancing, seasonal plays, games, singing carols, cheerful celebration – and especially drinking – were banned by the Puritan-dominated Parliament of England in 1644, with the Puritans of New England following suit. Christmas was outlawed in Boston, and the Plymouth colony made celebrating Christmas a criminal offense, according to "Once Upon a Gospel" (Twenty-Third Publications, 2008).
Christmas trees and decorations were considered to be unholy pagan rituals, and the Puritans also banned traditional Christmas foods such as mince pies and pudding. Puritan laws required that stores and businesses remain open all day on Christmas, and town criers walked through the streets on Christmas Eve calling out "No Christmas, no Christmas!"
On Dec. 25, 1789, the first Christmas under the brand-new Constitution, the United States Congress was in session, with no day off for any holiday. In fact, the U.S. did not even make Christmas a federal holiday until 1870.
It was the rise of the industrial era and a new commercialism that turned the once-banned Christmas holiday into the commercial holiday and economic engine that it is today.
