The Massachusetts Congress declared Christmas illegal from 1659-1681.
Another fact: The early Christian church did not celebrate Jesus’ birth at all.
In other words, there were no Christmas Eve services and no pageants and no ministers trying to make sense of it all! Only over centuries, and only after solstice feasts turned really wild and really out of control did Christians seek to offer an alternative, calling it “Christ’s Mass,” or Christmas.
Another fact: Nobody was as hard on Christmas as the Puritans.
Christmas wasn’t biblical. And Jesus wouldn’t have approved of celebrations. Puritans ordered shops to stay open on Christmas. They banned holiday cakes and candles.
Ahh, forget it. Wingnuts don’t use facts !
For the rest of us, love is on our minds during the holidays.
But we can correct our history thought by thought, image by image.
For example, instead of a rowboat on Christmas Day in 1776, George Washington crossed the Delaware on a ferry pulled by a cable and crowded with troops.
