Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Time for the War on Christmas

It's that time of year again. The Kulturkrieg's Stoßtruppen are at it, warning us of the devious and pervasive forces that are out to suppress Christmas and to ruthlessly extract any reference to Christ--and to ensure that no one observes and celebrates the day in any manner whatsoever.

It's a damned serious problem and should not be mocked.

My small effort on behalf of the struggle to fight this insidious scheme is the fruits of my research to understand where it came from originally. I'm not suggesting that I've found its source, but I've managed to move that goalpost back in time, and want to share it.

"For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county."


Massachusetts Bay Colony
Law Banning Christmas Celebration
May 11, 1659
Damned Puritans.

Who would have guessed that the War on Christmas was a Christian cause?

3 comments:

fausto said...

Seeing as how most of the members of the colonial Massachusetts legislature were members of First Church in Boston, or other First Churches and Parishes, nearly all of which are now UU, I'd say...

...(drum roll please)...

...it stands to reason.

Nevertheless, it was also the Unitarian minister (and German immigrant) Charles Follen, who in the 19th century led the counterattack that popularized German-style evergreen decorations and gift-giving at Christmastime, and began to transform the holiday into the one we know today.

ogre said...

Yup, fausto--that irony was part of what made this so amusing. The people who banned it are adulated in their plasticized form by the Kulturkreigerin... who are busy worrying about people banning it. Meanwhile, the folk who are lineal descendants of those who sought to ban it helped create the modern semi-saturnalian that's being "defended."

Delicious. Absurd. Surreal.

I think that Sire Pellinore might be searching for the reason in all of this.

(Bravo, by the way. Nicely played.)

Earthbound Spirit said...

Ha,ha,ha! Oh, yes - I will use this the next time I offer a "Happy Holidays" to someone, only to be berated about Christ being the "reason for the season." Lovely, Ogre, just lovely.