In the middle of the 17th century Christmas was banned in England. In 1644, while the Civil War was in progress, the Puritan faction in Parliament drew up the first of several laws designed to outlaw the celebration of Christmas. The Puritans objected to the drinking and debauchery, noting that ‘more mischief is committed at that time than in all the year besides’. ‘What eating and drinking, what feasting, and all to the great dishonour of God and the impoverishment of the realm,’ they said.
But they didn’t just object to the jollity and over-indulgence. The very name was considered objectionable: ‘Christ’s Mass’ smacked a little too much of Roman Catholicism, so they changed the name to ‘Christ’s Tide’ and confined the celebration to just one day, and that a day of fasting! What’s more, there were real penalties for disobedience. Anyone found celebrating Christmas in the traditional manner could be fined or placed in the stocks. In London, soldiers patrolled the streets and seized any food and drink they suspected of being stored for Christmas celebrations. Throughout the country, government officers, sheriffs and justices of the peace did their best to ensure that markets and shops were kept open and that business was conducted as usual. For eighteen years Britain was without Christmas, and it wasn’t until 1660, when the monarchy was restored under Charles II, that people were able to celebrate Christmas unmolested once again. In Presbyterian Scotland - where Christmas had been outlawed even earlier than it had in England - Christmas Day remained a normal working day until 1958.
The Puritan voice is somewhat muted now, but it hasn’t been silenced altogether. Last week Ed Balls, the UK’s Minister for Children, issued 150,000 leaflets warning people about the hazards of the season, alerting us all to the fact that hot gravy can scald, pine needles can pierce the skin, undercooked turkeys can carry salmonella, and Christmas tree baubles can shatter with terrifying consequences. Ed Balls’ timely advice was satirised in the Daily Mail by David Thomas and Vincent Graff. This is part of what they wrote.
In order to avoid the risk of salmonella, ensure your turkey has been cooked right through. The Food Standards Agency recommends a cooking time of three weeks at 200c, but many safety-conscious cooks prefer to begin pre-heating their oven during the August bank holiday.
Diners may wish to consider a safer alternative such as Irish pork.
'Mince pies' cannot be described as such, as the name falls foul of consumer legislation.
'Mincemeat' does not contain minced meat. In order to avoid confusion and prosecution, Christmas celebrants should refer to fruit and suet based pastry snacks as 'fruit and suet based pastry snacks'
. Bear in mind that the following activities, involving bladed instruments, are classified as Extremely Hazardous, and should be conducted only by qualified personnel, wearing full protective equipment: peeling spuds; cutting those Xs into the bottom of Brussels sprouts, for reasons no one can understand; cutting carrots into fancy batons; trying to get the turkey in or out of the oven; tasting the gravy.
Carving knives should be removed from the kitchen a week before Non-Specific Winter Festival (the event formerly known by the offensive, rightly banned term 'Christmas') in order to avoid risk of injury. Many local gangs offer a complementary collection service for such knives.
Under no circumstances should anyone attempt to light a so-called Christmas pudding without the presence of at least two fully crewed fire engines equipped with water-hoses, foam and flame-retarding blankets and a fireworks display licence.
Please note that the meal formerly known as Christmas Dinner - officially renamed The Non-Specific Winter Festival Food-Intake Event - breaks all official guidelines for calorific intake and maximum weekly units of alcohol. This is not acceptable at a time of obesity.
A healthy, satisfying and enjoyable meal can be obtained by retaining many of the traditional features, in a new, exciting - and economical! - form.
Remove turkey skin, stuffing, roast potatoes, bacon, chipolatas, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, mince pies, Non-Specific Winter Festival pudding, cake, brandy butter, cream, custard and chocolates.
The main course should consist of:
1 slice lean turkey meat
Up to 200g carrots and/or sprouts
1 baked potato (no butter or cheese)
1 teaspoon unsweetened cranberry coulis
Alcohol should be avoided. A refreshing glass of tap water can give that 'special occasion' feel with ice, a slice of lemon and a sprig of holly in the glass.
Note: Ice is a hazardous substance that can fall on the floor, causing slips that may lead to broken bones.
The Puritan opposition to Christmas has good rational foundations. Theologically, Christmas has no justification whatsoever. The Bible tells us nothing about the time of year that Jesus was born, and if we take the stories at face value, it seems unlikely that Jesus was born in December. Shepherds would not be ‘tending their flocks’ on the hillside in the depths of winter, and no Roman governor would be foolish enough to call a census such as the one mentioned in Luke’s Gospel at a time when travelling would be more uncomfortable and more hazardous than at any other time of the year.
Christmas is not Christian, it is Pagan, they said – and they are still saying it today. And they are right. Christmas is Pagan, that is, it is a festival originally celebrated by those people who lived close to the earth and its rhythms. Pagans are heathens, people who live on the heath, people who don’t live in towns and cities. The word ‘heathen’ is a term of abuse coined by ‘sophisticated’ city dwellers (like us) to describe those who follow the rural ways. It’s an expression of cultural superiority. The city with its bright lights, its numerous distractions and its network of support systems, cuts us off from the deeper realities of existence, and we lose that awareness of life’s precariousness that is the natural inheritance of those who, by necessity, are attuned to the ways of the earth and the cycles of growth and decay. For them, this time of the year would - since the dawn of time - have been a time of rejoicing as the sun changes direction once again, and the darkness which has been threatening to overwhelm us, gradually begins to lose its grip. Why wouldn’t people celebrate? And why wouldn’t they celebrate in all the various ways that still linger in our Christmas celebrations – with themes of reversal, of doing things differently, which are designed to mimic and to encourage the reversal of the sun in its journey round the earth? These ‘pagan’ celebrations are expressions of joy, hope, and thanksgiving, which is why they are not inappropriate to the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus, the light of the world, who comes symbolically to turn us from our descent into darkness and guide us towards the light of God.
Of course, this won’t do for the purists – and Puritans are ‘purists’. The ‘Puritan’ is a discriminating intellectual, one who, according to G.K. Chesterton, believes that we can only worship God with our head, and not with our hands and feet. That’s why Puritan worship, wherever we find it, is so dry and colourless. A Puritan wants to think, but he is a little afraid to feel; he wants to pray, but not to sing; to talk but not to dance. And this antiseptic intellectualism has had an enormous influence on Unitarianism, which gradually whittled away symbolic, instinctive, and non-rational forms of celebration, leaving us with worthy but slightly dreary and wordy worship, which seems more concerned with ideas about life than about life itself.
I let my Unitarian Puritanism get the better of me once. In 1995, I wrote an article in the Wakefield Unitarian church newsletter calling for Christ to be taken out of Christmas. It’s not right for Jesus to be associated with this time of overindulgence and debauchery, I wrote. If we must celebrate his birth, then let’s do it at some other time – in the spring, perhaps. The local press got hold of the story and I was interviewed by reporters from the Wakefield Express and the Yorkshire Post. I was invited to defend my position on Radio Leeds in debate with the Anglican Bishop of Bradford. The Bishop roundly trounced me, gently and politely pointing out to me what I have been pointing out to you, that Christmas is a complex mix of celebrations: some are intellectually satisfying, others are emotionally uplifting. To try to separate them would not only be impossible, it would be inhuman.
My problem was that I really agreed with the Bishop from the beginning. Although I’d written the article, I didn’t really believe what I’d written. Part of me has always loved Christmas. I could only call for Christ to be taken out of Christmas because I knew that there was no chance that he ever would be. I love the ambiguities of the season, the intoxicating mixture of sentimentality, nostalgia, generosity, overindulgence, madness, Christianity, Paganism, secularism, fantasy, hope, and concern, which highlights the joys and sorrows of our humanity better than anything else in our experience. Christmas dramatically demonstrates to us both our capabilities and our shortcomings, what we strive to be, and what we sadly find it impossible to become. It illustrates the messiness of our lives in ways that no sermon, no drama, no novel even, can ever hope to emulate. Why wouldn’t we associate the birth of Jesus with such a stark reminder of our numerous human contradictions?
At Christmas, I find myself both Puritan and Pagan. Rationally, I’m with the Cromwellian Parliamentarians and Ed Balls, despairing of the excess, and alert to the dangers. But emotionally I’m with Dickens, another of our Unitarian forebears, who saw this season, with all its trivialities and absurdities, as a spiritual necessity, a time to loosen our belts and relax our brains; a time to relearn those two great virtues, gratitude and generosity.
So, to the Puritan in you, I say, ‘Happy Christ-tide’, ‘Happy Non-Specific Winter Festival’. But to the Pagan I say, with Dickens,

‘Happy Christmas.
                       God bless us everyone!’

Rev.Bill Darlison
25th December 2008 Dublin Unitarian Church.