Bah, Humbug! When England let the Grinch Rule Christmas

5 min readDec 4, 2017

As you go about decking the halls and being merry this Christmas season, take time to be thankful for all that holiday joy. You see, there once was a time when Christmas was’t full of Santa Claus, parties, gifts, and candy. A time when Christmas, like a wicked step-child, had to sit in the corner and repent of its bad behavior. A time when the only thing to fear was merriment itself. It wasn’t always that way of course, for the longest time Christmas was full of joy. For the England of 1642, however, the days of Bah-humbug were hastily approaching.

The Christmas Cookie Begins to Crumble

The Puritans, you see, weren’t getting along so well with their King, Charles I. To start with, his marriage to the French Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, didn’t give them a warm fuzzy. His constant request for money, debate over religious reform, and entanglements with Scotland and Ireland made for a lot of bad blood between the king and his parliament. With so many irreconcilable differences, the country ended up in a civil war.

Charles’s happy marriage to Henrietta Maria filled people with distrust. People worried she would influence him to the point they would lose their religious freedoms, and this brought Christmas into the firing line. Why the word itself was just a shortening of Christ’s Mass. Obviously, the day reeked with Catholic cooties. And with all that eating, drinking, dancing and down right promiscuity — why, the whole season was nothing but a dip in the river of sin.

The Plan Hatches

“You know,” said the mostly Puritan Parliament, “This King is making us agitated and slightly cantankerous. Let us therefore abolish Christmas. His Church of England is nothing but a cursed Mass of superstitions anyway. From now on Christmas celebrations of a religious or secular nature shall be as unwelcome as rats on toast.”

And so, parliament encouraged people to adopt an attitude of fasting instead of feasting. Fun and joy were marked men.

Pamphlets were printed, sermons were preached, and reminders given by the town crier. The idea didn’t go over well, the partying continued and riots broke out. “Skull cracking” and “Loss of limb” were now the common gifts of the day.

“Do more penance!” Yelled Parliament.

“Right,” said the people. “We’ll eat an extra slice of Aunt Hilda’s super dry fruitcake. If that’s not penance, nothing is,” and the partying continued.

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England and Grinch extraordinaire

Parliament vs. The Pantooka

Christmas 1645 seemed as if it would be a turning point for the Puritans. Charles I had been defeated and captured by Parliament’s New Model Army. A new Directory of Public Worship was published which excluded any mention of a Merry Christmas. Grinches everywhere were rejoicing, their yellow Grinchy eyes shone with delight, while their two sizes too small hearts beat extra fast. There’d be no jingtinglers, floofloovers, or whohoopers. There’d be no Christmas bells ringing and no Whos singing. Yet despite the king being imprisoned and the country being amid civil war, the Whos in Whoville refused to give up their merry making.

“Vat seems to be the problem?” Said Freud to parliament as it lay sobbing on his couch.

“It’s those stupid citizens of ours, they just won’t let us kill Christmas. Is that too much to ask?”

“Hum . . . tell me about your mother.”

By 1647 parliament passed an ordinance confirming the abolition of the feast of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun as well. In fact nothing was to be celebrated except for the second Tuesday of each month which for some reason just didn’t seem as exciting.

Christmas that year brought more riots and upheavals. Canterbury in particular went a little loopy. The government tried to suppress any superstitious festivals and ordered the market to be open as if it were a regular day. The people, however, retaliated. Crowds gathered outside the mayor’s house, windows were broken and the jail emptied. Royalist rushed in, hanging pantookas on the ceilings and piling panpoonas on the floors.

“Give us Christmas, or give us death!” they cried.

That is until the town was put under siege. The fun died down, the liquor and mince pies ran out and all the panpoonas were squashed. In the beginning of January, the town gave up.

It Ain’t Over ‘till It’s Over

In 1648 parliament gave pink slips to any members in favor of negotiating with Charles. Endearingly known as the Rump Parliament, those left had the support of Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army. They had Charles beheaded in 1649.

The Puritans now had the upper hand. All shops were ordered to remain open on December 25. Anyone attending Christmas church services would suffer harsh penalties, and London police kept an eye out for anyone trying to celebrate. “You just try to cook Christmas dinner,” the police said, “and we’ll have that goose arrested before you can say Bob Cratchit.”

Things were looking pretty bad for Christmas . . . until Oliver Cromwell died in 1658. With the Lord Protector gone, the people decided that having a king wasn’t such a bad thing after all. When Charles II ascended the throne in 1660 Christmas was freed from the ever unpopular ban. Everyone lived happily ever after.

Except for one thing.

Puritans in New England were unopposed in their beliefs on the evils of Christmas fun. Up until the mid-1800’s Christmas in Boston was just a regular work day, schools were even in session. Christmas didn’t become a legal holiday there until 1856 and the federal holiday wasn’t established until 1870.

And all this time you were feeling sorry for the British.

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