Centerfield

A Real War On Christmas

Seeing bk's recent great post made me sit up and notice when I read last week about a real War on Christmas. Soldiers were actually even sent to stop the that nasty Christmas. It wasn't just a media invention to bring eyeballs.

It was in Britain, during the reign of Oliver Cromwell, a military dictator who seized power in the English Civil War.

Cromwell was a Puritan, and alot of Puritans helped Cromwell get to power; he reciprocated once he got to power. From Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume 2:

The feast days of the Church, regarded as superstitious indulgennces, were replaced by a monthly fast day. Christmas excited the most fervent hostility of these fanatics. Parliament was deeply concerned at the liberty which it gave to carnal and sensual delights. Soldiers were sent round London on Christmas Day before dinnertime to enter private houses without warrants and seize meat cooking in all kitchens and ovens.

As the Profesora said, when soldiers seize your Christmas meat, now, that's a War on Christmas!

They also established a system of fines for swearing, graded by rank, and tore down Maypoles all over the country "lest old village dances around them lead to immorality or at least to levity." (gasp!) Walking abroad on the Sabbath, unless to go to Church, was punished.

Of course, Parliament during Cromwell's regime was selected more by Cromwell than by the people. In any Anglo-culture-descended democracy, in most elections, coming out against Christmas is a good way to lose.