When Americans banned Christmas

[Garland-Green]

How did the first settlers celebrate Christmas?
They didn't. The Pilgrims who came to America in 1620 were strict Puritans, with firm views on religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter. Scripture did not name any holiday except the Sabbath, they argued, and the very concept of "holy days" implied that some days were not holy. "They for whom all days are holy can have no holiday," was a common Puritan maxim. Puritans were particularly contemptuous of Christmas, nicknaming it "Foolstide" and banning their flock from any celebration of it throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. On the first Dec. 25 the settlers spent in Plymouth Colony, they worked in the fields as they would on any other day. The next year, a group of non-Puritan workmen caught celebrating Christmas with a game of "stoole-ball" — an early precursor of baseball — were punished by Gov. William Bradford. "My conscience cannot let you play while everybody else is out working," he told them.

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Comment:

Quote; But New England remained defiantly Scrooge-like; as late as 1850, schools and markets remained open on Christmas Day.

The article writers miss the point the elsewhere made in the article by comparing the New Englanders to Scrooge who out of selfishness (greed) disliked Christmas unlike the Puritans who had theological reasons even for what the writers claim are not theological reasons;

The poorest man in the parish was named the "Lord of Misrule," and the rich would wait upon him at feasts that often descended into bawdy drunkenness.

Ephesians 5:18
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,

In-guild discussion on the topics of Easter and Christmas;

Keep “Christmas in Christ”
4 Misconceptions About Christmas
The Truth About Easter and Resurrection