Christmas day is just two days away, which probably means you're quite ready for the Christmas shopping advertisements on the television and radio, in your newspaper and mailbox, to finally stop. Enough already! This year, I even received recorded messages on my telephone answering machine telling me not to miss out on the big Christmas sale at Kohls. I also seemed to hear more advertisements this year communicating the message: you've done enough shopping for other people, why not buy a Christmas present for yourself...like a plasma screen television set or a brand new car.
    Some of us may wish we could return to the good old days when people remembered "Jesus is the reason for the season," and none of the rampant consumerism or other forms of cultural baggage were attached to the celebration of Christmas. As Congregationalists, we may wish at times that we could return to those early days of our spiritual ancestors, the Puritans, and celebrate Christmas the way they did--in its most pure and pristine form.
    Well, it may surprise you to learn that our spiritual ancestors, the Puritans, did not celebrate Christmas at all. In fact, between the years 1659 and 1681, the Puritans passed a law making it illegal to celebrate Christmas in the Plymouth Colony.
    Now why on earth would the Puritans outlaw Christmas? After all, they were Christians. We trace our Congregational roots back to the Puritans, and we celebrate Christmas, so what did the Puritans have against Christmas?
The Puritans, as it turns out, had two things against Christmas. One was Biblical, the other was cultural.
    First, the Biblical. The Puritans were careful enough readers of the Bible to notice that nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus was born on December 25. As far as the Puritans were concerned, there was absolutely no Biblical basis whatsoever for celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25, and because there was no Biblical basis for it, they believed it highly inappropriate for Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25.
    This naturally leads to the question, then why do Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25? The reason we celebrate Christmas on December 25 is early Christians began celebrating the birth of Jesus on the late December pagan holiday celebrating the winter solstice, a holiday marked by much festivity and revelry. So while pagans celebrated the birth of the new sun, Christians celebrated the birth of the Son. This practice became common enough that in the fourth century, the Church in Rome officially declared that a Christ Mass should be celebrated every December 25, the date that approximated the pagan solstice holiday. And that is how December 25--the date of an already popular holiday--became the Christ Mass for Roman Catholics, and in time, Christmas for Protestants, except of course for the Puritans in England would have none of this.
    The second reason the Puritans disapproved of celebrating Christmas was cultural. In northern agricultural Europe, including England, the month of December was a time for merry-making, wild carousing, and riotous behavior. Now the month of December just happened to coincide with the celebration of Christmas, so, people being people, they turned Christmas into a whole season of merry-making, wild revelry, and riotous behavior.
    Why was December such a disorderly month? Social historian, Stephen Nissenbaum, explains in his book, The Battle For Christmas:

In northern agricultural societies, December was the major 'punctuation mark' in the rhythmic cycle of work, a time when there was a minimum of work to be performed. The deep freeze of mid-winter had not yet set in; the work of gathering the harvest and preparing for winter was done; and there was plenty of newly fermented beer or wine as well as meat from freshly slaughtered animals--meat that had to be consumed before it spoiled. (Nissenbaum, 5)

In early modern Europe, roughly the years between 1500 and 1800, the Christmas season was a time to let off steam--and to gorge. (Nissenbaum, 5)

Excess took many forms. Reveling could easily become rowdiness; lubricated by alcohol, making merry could edge into making trouble. Christmas was a season of 'misrule,' a time when ordinary behavioral restraints could be violated with impunity. (Nissenbaum, 6)

    As you can imagine, the Puritans, being quite strict and sober and restrained--being quite, well, puritanical--disapproved of these, to them, unruly and immoral celebrations, celebrations that were "lubricated by alcohol," and marked by far looser restraints on certain behaviors between men and women. They made several attempts to outlaw them in their native England, all without success. So when they sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World and began their own colony, they believed they had left the immorality of England behind.
    But they were wrong. It wasn't long before non-Puritans from the British Isles began sailing in large numbers to the New World, settling in and around Plymouth Colony, out on Cape Cod, up around Boston Harbor and the North Shore, and bringing their traditional late December Christmas celebrations with them.
    The worst among these newcomers, as far as the Puritans were concerned, were fishermen and mariners. Puritans considered fishermen and mariners to be the most spiritually bankrupt and morally corrupt people in God's creation. Unfortunately for the Puritans, coastal Massachusetts was filled with fisherman and mariners. Nantucket and Marblehead were especially notorious for their irreligious behavior, heavy drinking, loose sexuality, and outrageous late December Christmas celebrations.
    On a little side note, it turns out that one of our most beloved Christmas traditions--Christmas caroling--got its start with these wild and rowdy Christmas celebrations. Men and women would get wildly drunk and go wassailing, carousing through the streets of the costal towns and the City of Boston, singing irreverent songs and banging on the doors of the well-off demanding food and more alcohol, and threatening dire consequences if the well-off did not quickly produce something to eat or drink.
    Here's a couple of Christmas wassailing verses for you, just to give you a little taste:

We've come here to claim our right
And if you don't open up your door,
We'll lay you flat upon the floor

Strong Beer stout cider and a good fire
Are things this season doth require

This cold uncomfortable weather
Make Jack and Jill lie close together

    A far cry from "We wish you a Merry Christmas" or "Jingle Bells." Maybe we could try putting these lyrics to a tune and singing them in Pat and Mel Oake's neighborhood after their Christmas party tonight.
Any way, because of their numerical advantage and moral influence in the colony, the Puritans managed to make the celebration of Christmas illegal for about twenty years. But over time, the Puritan's influence diminished, and too many people thought celebrating Christmas was just too much fun, so the law declaring Christmas illegal was eventually rescinded.
    I share this little historical tidbit about our spiritual ancestors, the Puritans, this morning because it illustrates the point that Christmas has probably never existed in some pure form, some pristine spiritual form without a lot of cultural baggage, not in this country at least, probably not in Europe either. That's not to say that some Christians haven't managed to retain some spiritual integrity in their celebrations of Jesus' birth, but Christians have always lived in times and places where cultural influences have shaped popular expressions of the Christmas celebration, cultural influences and popular expressions that some Christians have disapproved of because they contradict and distort the "true" spirit of Christmas. For some Christians today, it is the rampant consumerism that has infiltrated people's consciousness and come to define much of the Christmas holiday that distorts the "true" spirit of Christmas.
    Stephen Nissenbaum makes a great observation when he writes:

The Church's hold over Christmas was (and remains still) rather tenuous. There were always people for whom Christmas was a time of pious devotions rather than carnival, but such people were always in the minority. It may not be going to far to say that Christmas has always been an extremely difficult holiday to Christianize. (Nissenbaum, 8)

    It is up to us to Christianize Christmas, at least for us and for those with whom we interact as Christians. It is up to us to intentionally seek to disentangle our consciousness from the cultural contradictions and distortions that continuously seek to infiltrate and hijack the meaning of Christmas, the cultural contradictions and distortions that seek to distract us from really struggling to understand just what Jesus' birth means to us as contemporary 21st century Christians.
    This Christmas, some of us will be with family and friends celebrating Christmas with a big meal and by opening gifts. Some of us will be with family and friends celebrating Christmas with a big meal here at church, as we open our doors to whoever is hungry. Some of us may be home alone and lonely, or home alone and content. However you spend your Christmas, please do not forget to Christianize your Christmas. For at least a moment, seek to disentangle your consciousness from all the hype and all the cultural baggage that has nothing to do with Christmas, and simply ask yourself, what does Jesus' birth mean to me?
    I'm not saying you have to be a Puritan on Christmas and refrain from putting a drop or two of brandy in your eggnog. But when someone asks you next week how your Christmas was, don't just answer by telling them where you ate your turkey dinner, and how much you stuffed yourself, and the best present you received, and how you maxed out your credit card.
    No, Christianize your response to the question, "how was your Christmas?" I don't want to put words in your mouth but say something like, "you know, I really reflected on the meaning of Jesus' birth, and Jesus' birth became meaningful to me in this way..."
    It sounds so odd to answer the question that way.
"Hey, how was your Christmas?"
     "Oh, it was really powerful, I reflected on the meaning of Jesus birth and I had this really profound spiritual experience...."
     "Yeah, but what did you get?"
It sounds so odd to dwell on Jesus and his birth when talking to others about how our Christmas went.
    Well, from one Christian to another, have an odd Christmas everyone.
    I wish you an odd Christmas, and a happy new year!

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