Could Christmas in the UK have survived if...

King Thomas

Banned
when Oliver Cromwell died another Puritan ruler had taken his place, and there had been no restoration of the Monarchy?
 
when Oliver Cromwell died another Puritan ruler had taken his place, and there had been no restoration of the Monarchy?

Probably, there is a pyschological need for a mid-winter celebration to raise flagging spirits, any culture based in northern europe will have this 'instinct'. If Puritan rule is permanent there will probably be a 'softening' over time. Or merely christmas celebrations kept quiet and low key.
 
The pendulum of English history always seems to swing away from absolute rule. This is a conservative impulse, not a radical one; the English, historically, seemed to get upset when long-standing and traditional liberties were altered or removed. Someone, somewhere, would re-introduce Christmas. What form that might take under a continued Puritanical regime is anyone's guess... a greater emphasis on its less "pagan" aspects, perhaps. Less brandy in the eggnog. More church. As for decorations... the Puritans wouldn't approve of Nativity statues, would they. So it's nothing but candles and plants, even though those are relatively "pagan", at least they're not "papist."
 
There's a British tradition that dates back at least to the late eighteenth century, and is probably older, of "Mummers Plays" at Christmas. I sometimes wonder if these were invented during the Commonwealth period to keep the traditions of Christmas secretly alive. They were performed by local fellows in disguise--they wore strips of cloth and paper all over their clothes, including hanging down from their hats to cover their face. Then on top of that they blackened their faces. I wonder if these people had to originally wear disguises because they were actually doing something illegal. They were performing a play--which was illegal during the Commonwealth. They were celebrating Christmas--which was illegal during the Commonwealth. Almost always the main character of a Mummers' Play is Saint George, and the Puritans did not approve of the celebration of saints. In Mummers' plays from the South, one of the characters is usually Father Christmas, who usually says "Welcome or welcome not, I hope Old Father Christmas will never be forgot."

[In brackets I will note that there used to be a belief that these plays actually dated back to pre-Christian times, this is no longer taken seriously by scholars. Also I have heard of the novel "The Death of the Fool" (not AH) but have never read it]
 
I will also point out that the Puritans settled New England in huge numbers, particularly Massachussets. So in this area of the United States, it took a long time for the custom of Christmas to catch on.

Maybe there is a need for a "winter festival", but if so the American Puritans filled it with the holiday of Thanksgiving.

There was a New England factory owner who kept his factory open on Christmas (and made his employees come to work) until he went to hear Charles Dickens read "A Christmas Carol" during a reading tour of the United States. From then on the factory owner started observing Christmas.

It really took a while for British Christmas to recover from the Commonwealth. It didn't really recover until Victoria's husband Albert introduced German customs such as the Christmas tree, and Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol".
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Let me reiterate. Christmas itself was never banned during the Republic, not even during the brief Rule of the Major Generals.

The Long Parliament did remove 3 feastdays from the calender (creating the secular Bank Holidays to replace them), but this is before Cromwell. When Cromwell seized power he reinstated the feastdays, and indeed was instrumental in creating the modern Christmas celebration (for example, Cromwell was instrumental in the creation of songs especially for the Christmas festival, what we now call Carols).
 
In our timeline (i.e. the real world), the English Parliament banned Christmas in 1647, this law remained on the books until 1660. I doubt it was much enforced towards the end. No, this is not the fault of Cromwell but of certain forces in the Parliament.

In our timeline (again I mean the real world), the British Parliament created the four traditional bank holidays in 1834, reducing the number of days off taken by British banks.

I think the 67th Tigers had these two events confused.

KEVP
 
Top