The Battle For Christmas Part 1

The Battle for Christmas.

by Stephen Nissenbaum.

Preface.

THIS BOOK had its beginnings more than twenty years ago, when I delivered a speculative scholarly paper t.i.tled "From 'The Day of Doom' to 'The Night Before Christmas.'" In that paper I dealt with the striking parallels between the best-known American poem of the 1600s and 1700s and the best-known American poem of the 1800s and 1900s. The earlier poem was about G.o.d's wrath, the later one about the goodwill of Santa Claus-but somehow the two were engaging in a kind of dialogue with each other. had its beginnings more than twenty years ago, when I delivered a speculative scholarly paper t.i.tled "From 'The Day of Doom' to 'The Night Before Christmas.'" In that paper I dealt with the striking parallels between the best-known American poem of the 1600s and 1700s and the best-known American poem of the 1800s and 1900s. The earlier poem was about G.o.d's wrath, the later one about the goodwill of Santa Claus-but somehow the two were engaging in a kind of dialogue with each other.

Actually, though, it is clear that the book began earlier still, with my childhood fascination for "The Night Before Christmas," whose verses I recited over and over when December came around. For me, growing up as I did in an Orthodox Jewish household, this was surely part of my fascination for Christmas itself, that magical season which was always beckoning, at school and in the streets, only to be withheld each year by the forces of religion and family. (I once decided that Christmas must mean even more to America's Jewish children than to its Christian ones.) I can remember, one Christmas Day, putting some of my own toys in a sack and attempting to distribute them to other children who lived in my Jersey City apartment house: If I couldn't get get presents, at least no one stopped me from giving them away, and in that fas.h.i.+on at least I could partic.i.p.ate in the joy of what, much later, I would come to think of as the "gift exchange." presents, at least no one stopped me from giving them away, and in that fas.h.i.+on at least I could partic.i.p.ate in the joy of what, much later, I would come to think of as the "gift exchange."

Much later came soon enough. By the late 1980s I had been a professional historian for some twenty years, and I was also regularly engaging in the nonacademic aspects of my trade. In 1988 I found myself involved in the development of a teacher-training program sponsored by Old Sturbridge Village, the living-history museum in central Ma.s.sachusetts. The theme we decided to focus on with the teachers (they taught grades 38) was holidays holidays. Remembering that paper I had written more than a decade earlier, I figured young children might be intrigued by seeing unfamiliar things in "A Visit from St. Nicholas," that most familiar of poems. ("Mama in her 'kerchief and I in my cap ..."? "Away to the window ... and threw up the sash ..."? "A miniature miniature sleigh"? "Eight sleigh"? "Eight tiny tiny reindeer"?) So I volunteered to take on Christmas myself. reindeer"?) So I volunteered to take on Christmas myself.

Preparing for my session, I made a series of startling discoveries that precipitated me into writing this book. To begin with, in an essay by the preeminent modern scholar of St. Nicholas, Charles W. Jones, I learned that "Santa Claus," far from being a creature of ancient Dutch folklore who made his way to the New World in the company of immigrants from Holland, was essentially devised by a group of non-Dutch New Yorkers in the early nineteenth century. (This discovery tied into another new notion I was acquainted with in a different context, that of "invented traditions"-customs that are made up with the precise purpose of appearing old-fas.h.i.+oned: the idea, for example, that every Scottish clan had its own unique tartan plaid-which turns out to have been the product of a nineteenth-century effort to romanticize the valiant Scots.) Second, from reading a biographical sketch of Clement Clarke Moore, the author of "A Visit from St. Nicholas," I realized that the history of his best-loved poem was intertwined with the physical and political transformation of New York City during the early nineteenth century. Moore, it turned out, was a wealthy and politically conservative country gentleman who found himself at war with the encroaching forces of New York's commercial and residential development at the very time he was writing his undying verses about the night before Christmas.

It was my third discovery that helped make sense of that curious convergence. The Christmas season itself was undergoing a change, I learned. From the writings of several obscure nineteenth-century folklorists, along with contemporary historians Peter Burke and Natalie Zemon Davis and Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, I discovered that Christmas had once occasioned a kind of behavior that would be shocking today: It was a time of heavy drinking when the rules that governed people's public behavior were momentarily abandoned in favor of an unrestrained "carnival," a kind of December Mardi Gras. And I found that in the early nineteenth century, with the growth of America's cities, that kind of behavior had become even more threatening, combining carnival rowdiness with urban gang violence and Christmas-season riots. (My key guides here were essays by the great British historian E. P. Thompson and one of his American disciples, Susan G. Davis.) Given the changed historical circ.u.mstances of the nineteenth century, I began to understand the appeal of a new-styled Christmas that took place indoors, within the secure confines of the family circle.

Those discoveries became the basis of much of the first three chapters of this book. Before long, I found myself exploring other issues, issues that stemmed from what I was learning about the creation of a new-styled domestic Christmas: At what point, and in what fas.h.i.+on, did Christmas become commercialized? What happened to family relations.h.i.+ps on this holiday, when children became the center of attention and the recipients of lavish gifts? (After all, before our own day, weren't parents supposed to have avoided at all costs such gestures of intergenerational indulgence?) So I began to think about Christmas in the context of the larger history of consumer culture and child-rearing practices. Once again, I came up with some rather unexpected findings, findings that drove me to the conclusion that where Christmas was concerned, the problems of our own age go back a long way. The Christmas tree itself, I discovered, first entered American culture as a ritual strategy designed to cope with what was already being seen, even before the middle of the nineteenth century, as a holiday laden with cra.s.s materialism-a holiday that had produced a rising generation of greedy, spoiled children.

Those issues became the subjects of Chapters 4 Chapters 4 and and 5 5. The remaining two chapters, about Christmas charity and Christmas under slavery, respectively, resulted from two very different circ.u.mstances. I had intended, from an early point, to write about d.i.c.kens's novella A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol, that other cla.s.sic text of the holiday season (along with Moore's poem). But when I reread d.i.c.kens's book (for the first time in many years), I was led to explore the intricate and not always proud history of face-to-face Christmas charity, especially as it related to impoverished children. As far as Christmas under slavery is concerned, it was my students at the College of William and Mary, where I taught during the 198990 academic year, who provoked my interest in that subject. The doc.u.mentary materials several of these students brought to me proved to be something of a revelation. I glimpsed a picture of Christmas under slavery that oddly resembled the pre-nineteenth-century carnival celebration I had discovered at the beginning of my work. As I struggled to achieve a deeper understanding of the slaves' holiday, I realized that with this topic my project had come full circle and it was time to stop.

One consequence of stopping there was that my book would essentially come to a halt with the turn of the twentieth century, well before the present day. But, I decided, this was exactly where I wished to stop. By the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, the Christmas celebration practiced by most Americans was one that would be quite familiar to their modern descendants. Between then and now, the modifications have been more of degree than of kind, more quant.i.tative than qualitative. The important changes-the revealing revealing changes-had all taken place. And those were the only changes I really cared about. changes-had all taken place. And those were the only changes I really cared about.

For the real subject of this book is not so much Christmas itself as what Christmas can tell us about broader historical questions. In writing about the commercialization of Christmas, for example, or the way Christmas made children the center of attention and affection, I have always tried to remember that those changes were expressions of the same forces that were transforming American culture as a whole. But it has been equally important for me also to see Christmas as one one of those very forces-as a cause as well as an effect, an active of those very forces-as a cause as well as an effect, an active instrument instrument of change as well as an indicator and a mirror of change. From that angle, Christmas itself played a role in bringing about both the consumer revolution and the "domestic revolution" that created the modern family. of change as well as an indicator and a mirror of change. From that angle, Christmas itself played a role in bringing about both the consumer revolution and the "domestic revolution" that created the modern family.

To raise such questions in this context is new. Until recently, the history of holidays has pretty much been written in what could be called an "antiquarian" fas.h.i.+on, as a subject that existed in isolation, sealed off from matters of broad importance. It is largely the work of anthropologists that has provoked a new look, by showing that the holiday season has long been serious cultural business. Christmas rituals-whether in the form of the rowdy excesses of carnival or the more tender excesses that surround the Christmas tree-have long served to transfigure our ordinary behavior in an almost magical fas.h.i.+on, in ways that reveal something of what we would like to be, what we once were, or what we are becoming despite ourselves. It is because the celebration of Christmas always illuminates these underlying features of the social landscape-and sometimes the very "fault lines" which threaten to divide it-that the content of the holiday, its timing, and even the matter of whether to celebrate it at all, have often been hotly contested. For this reason the book I have written const.i.tutes just a single large chapter in the history of the perennial battle for Christmas.

But if I am concerned with those larger issues, I remain fascinated by Christmas itself, as fascinated today as when I was a child in that Jersey City apartment house-perhaps even more so, in the light of what I have learned in writing this book. For if I am writing about Christmas with the larger goals of a social and cultural historian, I also aim to tell a good story in a new way. Whether I have succeeded or not, I know that I have at least (and at last) managed to make Christmas my own, and I hope I have done so without betraying either its enduring meanings or my own patrimony.

Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts June 1995

CHAPTER 1.

New England's War on Christmas THE P PURITAN W WAR ON M MISRULE.

IN NEW E ENGLAND, for the first two centuries of white settlement most people did not celebrate Christmas. In fact, the holiday was systematically suppressed by Puritans during the colonial period and largely ignored by their descendants. It was actually illegal illegal to celebrate Christmas in Ma.s.sachusetts between 1659 and 1681 (the fine was five s.h.i.+llings). Only in the middle of the nineteenth century did Christmas gain legal recognition as an official public holiday in New England. Writing near the end of that century, one New Englander, born in 1822, recalled going to school as a boy on Christmas Day, adding that even as late as 1850, in Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, "The courts were in session on that day, the markets were open, and I doubt if there had ever been a religious service on Christmas Day, unless it were Sunday, in that town." As late as 1952, one writer recalled being told by his grandparents that New England mill workers risked losing their jobs if they arrived late at work on December 25, and that sometimes "factory owners would change the starting hours on Christmas Day to five o'clock or some equally early hour in order that workers who wanted to attend a church service would have to forego, or be dismissed for being late for work." to celebrate Christmas in Ma.s.sachusetts between 1659 and 1681 (the fine was five s.h.i.+llings). Only in the middle of the nineteenth century did Christmas gain legal recognition as an official public holiday in New England. Writing near the end of that century, one New Englander, born in 1822, recalled going to school as a boy on Christmas Day, adding that even as late as 1850, in Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, "The courts were in session on that day, the markets were open, and I doubt if there had ever been a religious service on Christmas Day, unless it were Sunday, in that town." As late as 1952, one writer recalled being told by his grandparents that New England mill workers risked losing their jobs if they arrived late at work on December 25, and that sometimes "factory owners would change the starting hours on Christmas Day to five o'clock or some equally early hour in order that workers who wanted to attend a church service would have to forego, or be dismissed for being late for work."1 As we shall see, much of this is misleading or exaggerated. It is true that the New England states did not grant legal recognition to Christmas until the middle of the nineteenth century, but neither did most of the other states. There were were Christmas Day religious services in Worcester before 1850. And nineteenth-century factory owners had their own reasons for treating Christmas as a regular working day, reasons that had more to do with industrial capitalism than with Puritan theology. Still, the fact remains that those factory owners were indeed operating within a long New England tradition of opposition to Christmas. As early as 1621, just one year after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, their governor, William Bradford, found some of the colony's new residents trying to take the day off. Bradford ordered them right back to work. And in 1659 the Ma.s.sachusetts General Court did in fact declare the celebration of Christmas to be a criminal offense. Christmas Day religious services in Worcester before 1850. And nineteenth-century factory owners had their own reasons for treating Christmas as a regular working day, reasons that had more to do with industrial capitalism than with Puritan theology. Still, the fact remains that those factory owners were indeed operating within a long New England tradition of opposition to Christmas. As early as 1621, just one year after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, their governor, William Bradford, found some of the colony's new residents trying to take the day off. Bradford ordered them right back to work. And in 1659 the Ma.s.sachusetts General Court did in fact declare the celebration of Christmas to be a criminal offense.

Why? What accounts for this strange hostility? The Puritans themselves had a plain reason for what they tried to do, and it happens to be a perfectly good one: There is no biblical or historical reason to place the birth of Jesus on December 25. True, the Gospel of Luke tells the familiar story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth-how the shepherds were living with their flocks in the fields of Judea, and how, one night, an angel appeared to them and said, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." But nowhere in this account is there any indication of the exact date, or even the general season, on which "this day" fell. Puritans were fond of saying that if G.o.d had intended for the anniversary of the Nativity to be observed, He would surely have given some indication as to when that anniversary occurred. (They also argued that the weather in Judea during late December was simply too cold for shepherds to be living outdoors with their flocks.) It was only in the fourth century that the Church officially decided to observe Christmas on December 25. And this date was chosen not for religious reasons but simply because it happened to mark the approximate arrival of the winter solstice, an event that was celebrated long before the advent of Christianity. The Puritans were correct when they pointed out-and they pointed it out often-that Christmas was nothing but a pagan festival covered with a Christian veneer. The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston, for example, accurately observed in 1687 that the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so "thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian [ones]."2 Most cultures (outside the tropics) have long marked with rituals involving light and greenery those dark weeks of December when the daylight wanes, all culminating in the winter solstice-the return of sun and light and life itself. Thus Chanukah, the "feast of lights." And thus the Yule log, the candles, the holly, the mistletoe, even the Christmas tree-pagan traditions all, with no direct connection to the birth of Jesus.3 But the Puritans had another reason for suppressing Christmas. The holiday they suppressed was not what we we probably mean when we think of a traditional Christmas. As we shall see, it involved behavior that most of us would find offensive and even shocking today-rowdy public displays of excessive eating and drinking, the mockery of established authority, aggressive begging (often involving the threat of doing harm), and even the invasion of wealthy homes. probably mean when we think of a traditional Christmas. As we shall see, it involved behavior that most of us would find offensive and even shocking today-rowdy public displays of excessive eating and drinking, the mockery of established authority, aggressive begging (often involving the threat of doing harm), and even the invasion of wealthy homes.

It may seem odd that Christmas was ever celebrated in such a fas.h.i.+on. But there was a good reason. 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 midwinter had not yet set in; the work of gathering the harvest and preparing it 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. St. Nicholas, for example, is a.s.sociated with the Christmas season chiefly because his "name-day," December 6, coincided in many European countries with the end of the harvest and slaughter season.4 In our own day the Christmas season begins as early as the day after Thanksgiving for many people, and continues to January 1. But our culture is by no means the first in which "Christmas" has meant an entire season season rather than a single day. In early modern Europe, the Christmas season might begin as early as late November and continue well past New Year's Day. (We still sing about "the twelve days of Christmas," and the British still celebrate "Twelfth Night.") In England the season might open as early as mid-December and last until the first Monday after January 6 (dubbed "Plow Monday," the return to work), or later. rather than a single day. In early modern Europe, the Christmas season might begin as early as late November and continue well past New Year's Day. (We still sing about "the twelve days of Christmas," and the British still celebrate "Twelfth Night.") In England the season might open as early as mid-December and last until the first Monday after January 6 (dubbed "Plow Monday," the return to work), or later.5 But it isn't very useful, finally, to try to pin down the exact boundaries of a "real" Christmas in times past, or the precise rituals of some "traditional" holiday season. Those boundaries and rituals changed over time and varied from one place to another. What is more useful, in any setting, is to look for the dynamics of an ongoing contest, a push and a pull-sometimes a real battle-between those who wished to expand the season and those who wished to contract and restrict it. (Nowadays the contest may pit merchants-with children as their allies-against those grown-ups who resent seeing Christmas displays that seem to go up earlier and earlier with each pa.s.sing year.) But it isn't very useful, finally, to try to pin down the exact boundaries of a "real" Christmas in times past, or the precise rituals of some "traditional" holiday season. Those boundaries and rituals changed over time and varied from one place to another. What is more useful, in any setting, is to look for the dynamics of an ongoing contest, a push and a pull-sometimes a real battle-between those who wished to expand the season and those who wished to contract and restrict it. (Nowadays the contest may pit merchants-with children as their allies-against those grown-ups who resent seeing Christmas displays that seem to go up earlier and earlier with each pa.s.sing year.) In early modern Europe, roughly the years between 1500 and 1800, the Christmas season was a time to let off steam-and to gorge. It is difficult today to understand what this seasonal feasting was like. For most of the readers of this book, good food is available in sufficient quant.i.ty year-round. But early modern Europe was above all a world of scarcity. Few people ate much good food at all, and for everyone the availability of fresh food was seasonally determined. Late summer and early fall would have been the time of fresh vegetables, but December was the season-the only season-for fresh meat. Animals could not be slaughtered until the weather was cold enough to ensure that the meat would not go bad; and any meat saved for the rest of the year would have to be preserved (and rendered less palatable) by salting. December was also the month when the year's supply of beer or wine was ready to drink. And for farmers, too, this period marked the start of a season of leisure. Little wonder, then, that this was a time of celebratory excess.

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. It was part of what one historian has called "the world of carnival." (The term carnival carnival is rooted in the Latin words is rooted in the Latin words carne carne and and vale vale-"farewell to flesh." And "flesh" refers here not only to meat but also to s.e.x-carnal as well as as well as carnivorous.) carnivorous.) Christmas "misrule" meant that not only hunger but also anger and l.u.s.t could be expressed in public. (It was no accident, wrote Increase Mather, that "December was called Christmas "misrule" meant that not only hunger but also anger and l.u.s.t could be expressed in public. (It was no accident, wrote Increase Mather, that "December was called Mensis Genialis Mensis Genialis, the Voluptuous Month."6) Often people blackened their faces or disguised themselves as animals or cross-dressed, thus operating under a protective cloak of anonymity. The late-nineteenth-century historian John Ashton reports one episode from Lincolns.h.i.+re in 1637, in which the man selected by a crowd of revelers as "Lord of Misrule" was publicly given a "wife," in a ceremony led by a man dressed as a minister (he read the entire marriage service from the Book of Common Prayer). Thereupon, as Ashton noted in Victorian language, "the affair was carried to its utmost extent."7 Episodes like these offered another reason, and a deeper one, for the Puritans' objection to Christmas. Here is how the Reverend Increase Mather of Boston put it in 1687: The generality of Christmas-keepers observe that festival after such a manner as is highly dishonourable to the name of Christ. How few are there comparatively that spend those holidays (as they are called) after an holy manner. But they are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in mad Mirth....

And Increase Mather's son Cotton put it this way in 1712: "[T]he Feast of Christ's Nativity is spent in Reveling, Dicing, Carding, Masking, and in all Licentious Liberty ... by Mad Mirth, by long Eating, by hard Drinking, by lewd Gaming, by rude Reveling ..."8 Even an Anglican minister, a man who approved approved of "keeping" Christmas (as it was then put), acknowledged the truth of the Puritans' charges. Writing in 1725, the Reverend Henry Bourne of Newcastle, England, called the way most people commonly behaved during the Christmas season "a Scandal to Religion, and an encouraging of Wickedness." Bourne admitted that for Englishmen of the lower orders the Christmas season was merely "a pretense for Drunkenness, and Rioting, and Wantonness." And he believed the season went on far too long. Most Englishmen, Bourne claimed, chose to celebrate it well past the official period of twelve days, right up to Candlemas Day on February 2. For that entire forty-day period, it was common "for Men to rise early in the Morning, that they may follow strong Drink, and continue untill Night, till Wine inflame them." of "keeping" Christmas (as it was then put), acknowledged the truth of the Puritans' charges. Writing in 1725, the Reverend Henry Bourne of Newcastle, England, called the way most people commonly behaved during the Christmas season "a Scandal to Religion, and an encouraging of Wickedness." Bourne admitted that for Englishmen of the lower orders the Christmas season was merely "a pretense for Drunkenness, and Rioting, and Wantonness." And he believed the season went on far too long. Most Englishmen, Bourne claimed, chose to celebrate it well past the official period of twelve days, right up to Candlemas Day on February 2. For that entire forty-day period, it was common "for Men to rise early in the Morning, that they may follow strong Drink, and continue untill Night, till Wine inflame them."

Bourne singled out two particularly dangerous seasonal practices, mumming and (strange to modern readers) the singing of Christmas carols. Mumming usually involved "a changing of Clothes between Men and Women; who when dressed in each other's habits, go from one Neighbor's house to another ... and make merry with them in disguise." Bourne proposed that "this Custom, which is still so Common among us at this Season of the Year, [be] laid aside; as it is the Occasion of much Uncleanness and Debauchery." As for singing Christmas carols, that practice was a "disgrace," since it was "generally done, in the midst of Rioting and Chambering, and Wantonness."9 ("Chambering" was a common euphemism for fornication.) It was another Anglican cleric, the sixteenth-century bishop Hugh Latimer, who put the matter most succinctly: "Men dishonour Christ more in the twelve days of Christmas, than in all the twelve months besides." ("Chambering" was a common euphemism for fornication.) It was another Anglican cleric, the sixteenth-century bishop Hugh Latimer, who put the matter most succinctly: "Men dishonour Christ more in the twelve days of Christmas, than in all the twelve months besides."

The Puritans knew what subsequent generations would forget: that when the Church, more than a millennium earlier, had placed Christmas Day in late December, the decision was part of what amounted to a compromise, and a compromise for which the Church paid a high price. Late-December festivities were deeply rooted in popular culture, both in observance of the winter solstice and in celebration of the one brief period of leisure and plenty in the agricultural year. In return for ensuring ma.s.sive observance of the anniversary of the Saviors birth by a.s.signing it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been. From the beginning, the Church's hold over Christmas was (and remains still) rather tenuous. There were always people for whom Christmas was a time of pious devotion rather than carnival, but such people were always in the minority. It may not be going too far to say that Christmas has always been an extremely difficult holiday to Christianize Christianize. Little wonder that the Puritans were willing to save themselves the trouble.

THE P PURITANS understood another thing, too: Much of the seasonal excess that took place at Christmas was not merely chaotic "disorder" but behavior that took a profoundly ritualized form. Most fundamentally, Christmas was an occasion when the social hierarchy itself was symbolically turned upside down, in a gesture that inverted designated roles of gender, age, and cla.s.s. During the Christmas season those near the bottom of the social order acted high and mighty. Men might dress like women, and women might dress (and act) like men. Young people might imitate and mock their elders (for example, a boy might be chosen "bishop" and take on for a brief time some of the authority of a real bishop). A peasant or an apprentice might become "Lord of Misrule" and mimic the authority of a real "gentleman." understood another thing, too: Much of the seasonal excess that took place at Christmas was not merely chaotic "disorder" but behavior that took a profoundly ritualized form. Most fundamentally, Christmas was an occasion when the social hierarchy itself was symbolically turned upside down, in a gesture that inverted designated roles of gender, age, and cla.s.s. During the Christmas season those near the bottom of the social order acted high and mighty. Men might dress like women, and women might dress (and act) like men. Young people might imitate and mock their elders (for example, a boy might be chosen "bishop" and take on for a brief time some of the authority of a real bishop). A peasant or an apprentice might become "Lord of Misrule" and mimic the authority of a real "gentleman."10 Increase Mather explained with an anthropologist's clarity what he believed to be the origins of the practice: "In the Saturnalian Days, Masters did wait upon their Servants.... The Gentiles called Saturns time the Golden Age, because in it there was no servitude, in Commemoration whereof on his Festival, Servants must be Masters." This practice, like so many others, was simply picked up and transposed to Christmas, where those who were low in station became " Increase Mather explained with an anthropologist's clarity what he believed to be the origins of the practice: "In the Saturnalian Days, Masters did wait upon their Servants.... The Gentiles called Saturns time the Golden Age, because in it there was no servitude, in Commemoration whereof on his Festival, Servants must be Masters." This practice, like so many others, was simply picked up and transposed to Christmas, where those who were low in station became "Masters of Misrule."11 To this day, in the British army, on December 25 officers are obliged to wait upon enlisted men at meals. To this day, in the British army, on December 25 officers are obliged to wait upon enlisted men at meals.*

The most common ritual of social inversion during the Christmas season involved something that is a.s.sociated with Christmas in our own day-we would call it charity. Prosperous and powerful people were expected to offer the fruits of their harvest bounty to their poorer neighbors and dependents. A Frenchman traveling in late-seventeenth-century England noted that "they are not so much presents from friend to friend, or from equal to equal ..., as from superior to inferior."12 That may sound familiar enough. But the modern notion of charity does not really convey a picture of how this transaction worked. For it was usually the poor themselves who initiated the exchange, and it was enacted face-to-face, in rituals that would strike many of us today as an intolerable invasion of privacy. That may sound familiar enough. But the modern notion of charity does not really convey a picture of how this transaction worked. For it was usually the poor themselves who initiated the exchange, and it was enacted face-to-face, in rituals that would strike many of us today as an intolerable invasion of privacy.

At other times of the year it was the poor who owed goods, labor, and deference to the rich. But on this occasion the tables were turned-literally. The poor-most often bands of boys and young men-claimed the right to march to the houses of the well-to-do, enter their halls, and receive gifts of food, drink, and sometimes money as well. And the rich had to let them in-essentially, to hold "open house." Christmas was a time when peasants, servants, and apprentices exercised the right to demand that their wealthier neighbors and patrons treat them as if they they were wealthy and powerful. The Lord of the Manor let the peasants in and feasted them. In return, the peasants offered something of true value in a paternalistic society-their were wealthy and powerful. The Lord of the Manor let the peasants in and feasted them. In return, the peasants offered something of true value in a paternalistic society-their goodwill goodwill. Just when and how this actually happened each year-whether it was a gracious offering or the forced concession to a hostile confrontation-probably depended on the particular individuals involved as well as the local customs that had been established in years past (and which were constantly being "re-negotiated" through just such ritualized practices as these).

This exchange of gifts for goodwill often included the performance of songs, often drinking songs, that articulated the structure of the exchange. These songs (and the ritual as a whole) bore a variety of names. One name that is still known in our culture is that of wa.s.sailing wa.s.sailing, and I shall take the liberty of using this word to refer to a whole set of similar rituals that may have had other names. Wa.s.sailers-roving bands of youthful males-toasted the patron's well-being while drinking the beer he had been kind enough to supply them. Robert Herrick included this wa.s.sail in his 1648 poem "Ceremonies for Christma.s.se": Come bring, with a noise, My merrie, merrie boys, The Christmas log to the firing; While my good dame she Bids ye all be free [i.e., with the alcohol]

And drink to your heart's desiring....13 The wa.s.sail usually possessed an aggressive edge-often an explicit threat-concerning the unpleasant consequences to follow if the beggars' demands were not met. One surviving wa.s.sail song contains this blunt demand and threat: We've come here to claim our right....

And if you don't open up your door, We will lay you flat upon the floor.

But there was also the promise of goodwill if the wa.s.sailers were treated well-toasts to the patrons health and prosperity. (It is the promise of goodwill, alone from this ritualized exchange, that has been retained in the modern revival of old Christmas songs.) The following wa.s.sail was sung on the Isle of Man by bands of young men who marched from house to house begging for food: Again we a.s.semble, a merry New Year To wish to each one of the family here....

May they of potatoes and herrings have plenty, With b.u.t.ter and cheese, and each other dainty....

One song that has recently been revived, the "Gloucesters.h.i.+re Wa.s.sail," shows the drinkers going from one well-to-do house to another ("Wa.s.sail! Wa.s.sail! all over the town"). At each stop they wish their patron a successful harvest, the fruits of which are to be shared with them ("G.o.d send our master a cup of good beer.... G.o.d send our mistress a good Christmas pie ..."). Each verse amounts to a toast that ends in a fresh round of drinks ("With my wa.s.sailing bowl I drink to thee")-to the master and mistress, to their horse, to their cow, to anything at all that can be toasted.14 It was not enough for the landlord to let the peasants in and feed them. On this one occasion he had to share with them his choicest food and drink, his private stock. Robert Herrick included a couplet to this effect in the poem quoted above: "Drink now the strong beere, / Cut the white loaf here." (The emphasis is on the "strong "strong beere," the beere," the "white "white loaf.") When the wa.s.sailers on the Isle of Man had sung their verses, they were, in the words of the folklorist who recorded their ritual, "invited into the house to partake of loaf.") When the wa.s.sailers on the Isle of Man had sung their verses, they were, in the words of the folklorist who recorded their ritual, "invited into the house to partake of the best the family can afford." the best the family can afford." The final verse of the "Gloucesters.h.i.+re Wa.s.sail" opens with just such a demand for choice beer ("Come, butler, draw us a bowl of the best / Then we hope your soul in heaven shall rest"), but the threat follows quickly: "But if you draw us a bowl of the small [i.e., weak beer], / Then down will come butler, bowl, and all." The final verse of the "Gloucesters.h.i.+re Wa.s.sail" opens with just such a demand for choice beer ("Come, butler, draw us a bowl of the best / Then we hope your soul in heaven shall rest"), but the threat follows quickly: "But if you draw us a bowl of the small [i.e., weak beer], / Then down will come butler, bowl, and all."15 In an agricultural economy, the kind of "misrule" I have been describing did not really challenge the authority of the gentry. The historian E. P. P. Thompson has noted that landed gentlemen could always try to use a generous handout at Christmas as a way of making up for a year's acc.u.mulation of small injustices, regaining in the process their tenants' goodwill. In fact, episodes of misrule were widely tolerated by the elite. Some historians argue that role inversions actually functioned as a kind of safety valve that contained cla.s.s resentments within clearly defined limits, and that by inverting the established hierarchy (rather than simply ignoring it), those role inversions actually served as a reaffirmation of the existing social order. Thompson has noted that landed gentlemen could always try to use a generous handout at Christmas as a way of making up for a year's acc.u.mulation of small injustices, regaining in the process their tenants' goodwill. In fact, episodes of misrule were widely tolerated by the elite. Some historians argue that role inversions actually functioned as a kind of safety valve that contained cla.s.s resentments within clearly defined limits, and that by inverting the established hierarchy (rather than simply ignoring it), those role inversions actually served as a reaffirmation of the existing social order.16 It was all a little like Halloween todays-when, for a single evening, children a.s.sume the right to enter the houses of neighbors and even strangers, to It was all a little like Halloween todays-when, for a single evening, children a.s.sume the right to enter the houses of neighbors and even strangers, to demand of demand of their elders a gift (or "treat") and to threaten them, should they fail to provide one, with a punishment (or "trick"). their elders a gift (or "treat") and to threaten them, should they fail to provide one, with a punishment (or "trick").

This kind of trick-or-treat ritual is largely nonexistent today at Christmas, but vestiges of it do remain. Take, for instance, a December 1991 article in Money Money magazine, which warns its readers to "Tip Defensively" at Christmas: "'At holiday time you must show people who work for you that you appreciate good service,'.... Translation: if you don't, you'll suffer the consequences all next year (Day-Glo hair tinting or sprinkler-soaked newspapers).... Keep in mind a kind of reverse Marxism: to each according to magazine, which warns its readers to "Tip Defensively" at Christmas: "'At holiday time you must show people who work for you that you appreciate good service,'.... Translation: if you don't, you'll suffer the consequences all next year (Day-Glo hair tinting or sprinkler-soaked newspapers).... Keep in mind a kind of reverse Marxism: to each according to your your need. That is, tip most generously those who can do you the most damage." need. That is, tip most generously those who can do you the most damage."17 PROSECUTING THE C CHRISTMAS-KEEPERS, 16201750 In early modern Europe, all this postharvest behavior operated within (though at the boundaries of) the normal social order. It was part of a cultural world that went back thousands of years and involved the yearly agricultural cycle, which defined and integrated work and play, with times of intense labor followed by periods of equally intense celebration. This seasonal cycle, perhaps more than anything else, was what determined the texture of people's lives. It was even appropriated by the Church (as the Christmas season itself had been) and given a religious gloss, whereby times of celebration were a.s.sociated with any number of official saints' days that were generally observed with more revelry than piety.

Here was exactly what the Puritans tried to suppress when they came to power in England, and New England, in the middle of the seventeenth century. It was this entire cultural world, with its periodic seasons of labor and festivity-and not just Christmas itself-that Puritans felt to be corrupt, "pagan," evil. It was this world that they systematically attempted to abolish and "purify." They wished to replace it with a simpler, more orderly culture in which people were more disciplined and self-regulated, in which ornate churches and cathedrals were replaced by plain "meetinghouses," in which lavish periodic celebrations-the seasonal cycle itself-were replaced by an orderly and regular succession of days, punctuated only by a weekly day of rest and self-examination, the Sabbath.

Christmas was an important (and symbolically charged) expression of this cultural world, and the Puritans attacked it with particular intensity. In England, the Puritan Parliament made a point of holding regular sessions each December 25 from 1644 through 1656, and it did what it could to suppress the traditional observance of the date. (In 1644 Parliament actually decreed that December 25 was to be observed as a day of fasting and repentance-for the sinful way the occasion had been made into a time of "giving liberty to carnall and sensual delights.")18 One unhappy Englishman referred to those delights as nothing more than "liberty and harmless sports ... [by] which the toiling plowswain and labourer were wont to be recreated, and their spirits and hopes revived for a whole twelve month." But the Puritans had made these innocent customs "extinct and put out of use ... as if they never had been.... Thus are the merry lords of misrule suppressed by the mad lords of bad rule at Westminster [i.e., Parliament]." One unhappy Englishman referred to those delights as nothing more than "liberty and harmless sports ... [by] which the toiling plowswain and labourer were wont to be recreated, and their spirits and hopes revived for a whole twelve month." But the Puritans had made these innocent customs "extinct and put out of use ... as if they never had been.... Thus are the merry lords of misrule suppressed by the mad lords of bad rule at Westminster [i.e., Parliament]."19

"The Tryal of Father Christmas." The t.i.tle page of a 1686 British book mocking the Puritans who had suppressed Christmas-and who had been out of power in England for some twenty-five years when this book was published. The Puritan jurors in this trial bore such names as "Mr. Cold-kitchen," "Mr. Give-little," and "Mr. Hate-good." (Courtesy, Mark Bond-Webster) (Courtesy, Mark Bond-Webster) In England the success of the Puritans was limited and temporary. Legislation banning the celebration of Christmas was contested in many places even during the 1640s and 1650s, when Puritans controlled the government (there were riots in several towns), and the policy was quickly reversed in 1660 upon the restoration of the English monarchy.20 But in New England the Puritans did largely succeed in eliminating Christmas, along with many of the other practices of English popular culture. David D. Hall has succinctly described the "transformed culture" of what he aptly terms a "new Protestant vernacular": Psalm-singing replaced ballads. Ritual was reorganized around the celebration of the Sabbath and of fast days. No town in New England had a Maypole; no group celebrated Christmas or St. Valentine's Day, or staged a pre-Lenten carnival!21 TAKE THE EXAMPLE of almanacs. Almanacs had become popular in England by the seventeenth century, and they remained popular in New England as well. English almanacs generally listed Christmas, along with the bevy of saints' days that showed the commitment of the Church of England to the old, seasonally based calendar. (These saints' days were known as "red-letter days," because in English almanacs and church calendars they were printed in red ink.) But in seventeenth-century New England, almanacs were "purified" of all these old a.s.sociations. (Indeed, for a time even the common names for the days of the week were purged from the almanacs on account of their pagan origins-after all, of almanacs. Almanacs had become popular in England by the seventeenth century, and they remained popular in New England as well. English almanacs generally listed Christmas, along with the bevy of saints' days that showed the commitment of the Church of England to the old, seasonally based calendar. (These saints' days were known as "red-letter days," because in English almanacs and church calendars they were printed in red ink.) But in seventeenth-century New England, almanacs were "purified" of all these old a.s.sociations. (Indeed, for a time even the common names for the days of the week were purged from the almanacs on account of their pagan origins-after all, Thursday Thursday meant "Thor's day," and meant "Thor's day," and Sat.u.r.day Sat.u.r.day was "Saturn's day.") The Puritans knew that the power to was "Saturn's day.") The Puritans knew that the power to name name time was also the power to time was also the power to control control it. it.

So it should come as no surprise that seventeenth-century Ma.s.sachusetts almanacs did not refer to December 25 as Christmas Day. Instead, the date December 25 would be left without comment, or it would contain a notice that one of the county courts was due to sit that day-an implicit reminder that in New England, December 25 was just another workday.

?HE SUCCESS of the New England Puritans was impressive and long-lasting. Christmas was kept on the margins of early New England society. Still, it was never suppressed completely. Take, for example, two instances that are sometimes cited to show that the Puritan authorities succeeded in abolis.h.i.+ng Christmas. We have already encountered the first of these in the entry for Christmas Day, 1621, in the journal of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony. Bradford encountered a group of people who were taking the day off from work, and he promptly sent them back to work. Here, in the first full year of the Pilgrims' life in the New World, were a group of Christmas-keepers. Nor did this group observe Christmas in a devout fas.h.i.+on or even by simply staying in their houses-Bradford indicated that he would have allowed them that. What bothered the governor was that these Christmas-keepers were, in his own words, out "gaming [and] reveling in the streets." of the New England Puritans was impressive and long-lasting. Christmas was kept on the margins of early New England society. Still, it was never suppressed completely. Take, for example, two instances that are sometimes cited to show that the Puritan authorities succeeded in abolis.h.i.+ng Christmas. We have already encountered the first of these in the entry for Christmas Day, 1621, in the journal of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony. Bradford encountered a group of people who were taking the day off from work, and he promptly sent them back to work. Here, in the first full year of the Pilgrims' life in the New World, were a group of Christmas-keepers. Nor did this group observe Christmas in a devout fas.h.i.+on or even by simply staying in their houses-Bradford indicated that he would have allowed them that. What bothered the governor was that these Christmas-keepers were, in his own words, out "gaming [and] reveling in the streets."22 The second instance is the 1659 law pa.s.sed by the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Colony, the law that levied a five-s.h.i.+lling fine on anyone who was "found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way."

Such laws are not made, of course, unless there are people who are engaging in the forbidden activity. And the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay law of 1659, like Governor Bradford's earlier report, suggests that there were indeed people in Ma.s.sachusetts who were observing Christmas in the late 1650s. The law was clear on this point: It was designed "for preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such Festivals as were superst.i.tiously kept in other countries." The wording of the law also implied that the authorities were chiefly concerned (as Governor Bradford had been) not with private devotion but with what the law termed "disorders." That point was reinforced by a provision in the law that threatened to impose a second five-s.h.i.+lling fine for gambling "with cards or dice," a practice, the court noted, that was "frequent in many places ... at such times [as Christmas]."

This is not to argue that Christmas was widely "kept" in seventeenth-century Ma.s.sachusetts. (For example, I have found no records of prosecutions under the 1659 law, which remained in force until 1681, when it was repealed under pressure from London.) What it does argue is that a festival with such old and deep roots in English culture could not simply be erased by fiat, and that it always hovered just beneath the surface of New England culture, emerging occasionally into plain sight.23 When that happened, it was in ways that confirmed the Puritan nightmares of excess, disorder, and misrule. When that happened, it was in ways that confirmed the Puritan nightmares of excess, disorder, and misrule.

Who were the people who practiced Christmas misrule in seventeenth-century New England? Not surprisingly, the evidence suggests that they were mostly on the margins of official New England culture (or altogether outside it). It is difficult to know for sure. There is no Christmas episode so notorious as the 162728 confrontation in which the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony forcibly destroyed the maypole that had been defiantly set up on nearby Mount Wollaston by Thomas Morton and his merry men. (May Day, like Christmas, marked a seasonal celebration that resonated deeply in English popular culture.) But that is only because Thomas Morton was practically the sole New England representative of popular culture who was literate, and even literary; he actually published a satirical account of the maypole episode. The rest of New England's early Christmas-keepers were at most barely literate, and they left no records.

It was fishermen and mariners who had the reputation of being the most incorrigible sinners in New England, the region's least "reformed" inhabitants. Maritime communities such as Nantucket, the Isles of Shoals, and (especially) the town of Marblehead, were notorious for irreligion, heavy drinking, and loose s.e.xual activity; they were also repositories of enduring English folk practices-places that ignored or resisted orthodox New England culture. It is no coincidence that Marblehead was also a site of ongoing Christmas-keeping.24 In 1662, for example, a fisherman named William h.o.a.r, a 33-year-old resident of Beverly, Ma.s.sachusetts, "was presented for suffering tippling [i.e., drinking] in his house by those who came to keep Christmas there."25 That is all we know about this event, but the h.o.a.r family itself is another story. h.o.a.r's wife and children became notorious for their brazen defiance of Puritan authority. They carried on a long-term vendetta against the local minister, the Reverend John Hale, even to the point of regularly invading his house while he was away, in order to consume his food and loot his goods. h.o.a.r's wife, Dorcas, was a fortune-teller (she specialized in palmistry), and she cultivated the rumor that she was also a practicing witch. Indeed, Dorcas h.o.a.r's reputation finally brought her down. In the dark year of 1692, she was convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to hang on Gallows Hill, a victim of the Salem witchcraft outbreak. That is all we know about this event, but the h.o.a.r family itself is another story. h.o.a.r's wife and children became notorious for their brazen defiance of Puritan authority. They carried on a long-term vendetta against the local minister, the Reverend John Hale, even to the point of regularly invading his house while he was away, in order to consume his food and loot his goods. h.o.a.r's wife, Dorcas, was a fortune-teller (she specialized in palmistry), and she cultivated the rumor that she was also a practicing witch. Indeed, Dorcas h.o.a.r's reputation finally brought her down. In the dark year of 1692, she was convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to hang on Gallows Hill, a victim of the Salem witchcraft outbreak.26 The Miser and the Sots: A Salem Village Wa.s.sail The single incident of Christmas-keeping in seventeenth-century Ma.s.sachusetts that can be described in any detail took place in 1679, and it is wonderfully revealing of the persistence of English seasonal folkways on the margins of Puritan New England.

At about 9 p.m. on Christmas night, 1679, four young men from Salem Village invaded the house of 72-year-old John Rowden, who lived with his wife, Mary, and their apprentice-and adopted son-Daniel Poole. (John Rowden was a farmer who owned an orchard that apparently included pear trees, from the fruit of which he and his wife had prepared a stock of pear wine, commonly known as perry.) In the testimony he gave three months later, old John Rowden provided a detailed account of what happened that night. First, the four men entered his house and sat down by the fire, and two of them "began to sing." When they had completed two songs, one of the men asked John Rowden, "'How do you like this, father? Is this not worth a cup of perry?'" Rowden answered them, "'I do not like it so well, pray be gone.'" But the men would not leave, telling Rowden "it was Christmas Day at night and they came to be merry and to drink perry, which was not to be had anywhere else but here, and perry they would have before they went."

Rowden again refused to offer them perry, and "told them they should have none there." The four visitors still would not take no for an answer. This time they tried to cajole Rowden into offering them the perry by promising payment at a later time: "'Call for your pot [of perry] and mine and I will pay you again,'" said one. This time it was Rowden's wife who replied, saying, "'We keep no ordinary [i.e., tavern] to call for pots.'" (A pot pot commonly referred to alcohol, as in the still-current usage commonly referred to alcohol, as in the still-current usage potted) potted) So the four men left. Or so it seemed-for fifteen minutes later three of them returned, saying they had managed to borrow some money and could pay for the perry on the spot. Apparently the Rowdens would actually have sold them the drink at this point, but the couple demanded to see the money in advance. One of the men shoved a "coin" in Goodwife Rowden's face; it proved to be "nothing but a piece of lead."

At this point the Rowdens, a.s.sisted by their young apprentice, managed to cajole (or push) the visitors out the door and into the December night. But once again the respite was brief. The visitors stopped about forty feet from the house and began to hara.s.s the Rowdens. They bellowed out sarcastic cries of "h.e.l.lo." One of them, Samuel Braybrooke by name, began to taunt the Rowdens' apprentice, demanding that he give them directions to the town of Marblehead (where alcohol could surely be had, especially on Christmas night). The apprentice, Daniel Poole, replied that "'he had better be at home with his wife.'" Braybrooke continued to taunt young Poole, asking him "if he wanted to fight, if so to come out." Braybrooke's companion Joseph Flint renewed the dare, this time suggesting that they make a bet out of it: "Flint said if he [Poole] wanted to box, he would box with him for a pot of perry." Finally, when it became clear that despite all this bravado the apprentice could not be pressured into leaving his doorway, the dares and taunts turned into actual violence-violence that was directed not directly at Poole or the Rowdens but at their house. Here is John Rowdens account of what happened: [T]hey threw stones, bones, and other things at Poole in the doorway and against the house. They beat down much of the daubing in several places and continued to throw stones for an hour and a half with little intermission. They also broke down about a pole and a half of fence, being stone wall, and a cellar, without [outside] the house, distant about four or five rods, was broken open through the door, and five or six pecks of apples were stolen.27 Quite a scene. But one that is wholly recognizable from the English and European sources; for this was a wa.s.sail gone bad. The four young men came to the old man's house and sang for their gift of perry. When refused, they pretended that they were willing to pay for the perry (even though making the exchange a financial transaction represented a violation of the wa.s.sail ritual, in which the drink would have been a gift offered in return for the songs). But the visitors could (or would) not pay; the "coin" they brought turned out to be a fake, and their offer of payment seems to have been intended merely as a sarcastic comment on the Rowdens' refusal to play their expected role in the gift exchange. Finally, the wa.s.sail turned into what the French call a "charivari" (loud noise, mocking taunts, and stone-throwing), which lasted for more than an hour. There was no gift and therefore no goodwill-no "treat," but only a "trick" in turn.

Typically, all four of the wa.s.sailers were young men (one was seventeen, another about twenty-one; only one of the four was married). Typically, too, all of them stood near the low end of the economic hierarchy, and none would ever achieve any great degree of prosperity.28 Finally, thirteen years later, three of the four men were peripherally involved in the events surrounding the Salem witch trials of 1692. Two of them (Braybrooke and Flint) were among the signers of a 1695 pet.i.tion urging the dismissal of the Reverend Samuel Parris, the Salem Village minister who played a central role as a supporter of the trials and an accuser of the witches. And a third, Benjamin Fuller, was one of thirty-six Salem Village residents who refused to pay their taxes in support of Samuel Parris's ministerial salary when Parris first arrived (amid controversy) in Salem Village in 1689. Finally, thirteen years later, three of the four men were peripherally involved in the events surrounding the Salem witch trials of 1692. Two of them (Braybrooke and Flint) were among the signers of a 1695 pet.i.tion urging the dismissal of the Reverend Samuel Parris, the Salem Village minister who played a central role as a supporter of the trials and an accuser of the witches. And a third, Benjamin Fuller, was one of thirty-six Salem Village residents who refused to pay their taxes in support of Samuel Parris's ministerial salary when Parris first arrived (amid controversy) in Salem Village in 1689.29 The "Salem wa.s.sail" (as I have come to call it) surely represented no threat to the social or cultural fabric of Ma.s.sachusetts, just as more frequent but similar incidents in Europe of misrule and charivari were hardly revolutionary acts. This was a trivial event, and the only harm it did was to the family of one elderly man (possibly a stingy and ill-tempered individual). Still, the episode suggests something of the animosities engendered by the cultural fault lines that continued to divide "official" Ma.s.sachusetts culture from the lingering traditions it tried so hard (and on the whole with such great success) to eradicate.

A Window on Popular Culture: The Dominion of New England Once, for a few strange years, the curtain of Puritan suppression was lifted, and not by choice. By 1680 it was becoming clear that the Restoration government in London would not continue to tolerate the Puritan political culture that had been established in New England. Knowing that its official charter of incorporation might be abrogated, in 1681 the Ma.s.sachusetts General Court reluctantly revoked several of the colony's laws that were most obnoxious to the English authorities. (One of the laws thus revoked was the act banning the celebration of Christmas.) But this was not enough to save the charter. It was abrogated in 1684, and during the three years from 1687 through 1689, Ma.s.sachusetts was governed directly from London, as part of a short-lived ent.i.ty known as the "Dominion of New England."

What happened during these three years was deeply humiliating to the Puritans. The hated governor of the Dominion, Sir Edmund Andros, ruled most of New England (along with New York). From his headquarters in Boston, Governor Andros attempted to impose English law and custom in the very seat of Puritan power. On Christmas Day, 1686, for example, two religious services were performed at the Boston Townhouse, and Andros attended both of them, with "a Red-Coat [soldier] going on his right hand and Capt. George on the left."

But Governor Andros did not simply impose Anglican practices on a populace that was universally resistant to them. One effect of his rule was to permit the public expression of a set of seasonal practices that were a.s.sociated with the popular culture of seventeenth-century England. Those expressions of the popular culture could not have surfaced openly without the legal protection offered by the Andros regime. Under its protective mantle, during this brief period, it was possible for the first time in Ma.s.sachusetts to act out heterodox rituals in public. A few Bostonians celebrated Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) by dancing in the streets, and a maypole was erected in Charlestown.

Christmas-keeping apparently began even in advance of the Andros regime. On December 25, 1685, the magistrate Samuel Sewall noted that "Some somehow observe the day," but he added, as if to rea.s.sure himself, that "the Body of the People profane it, and blessed be G.o.d no Authority yet to compel them to keep it." (Sewall also offered himself the rea.s.surance that there was "less Christmas-keeping [this year] than last year, fewer Shops Shut up," but that rea.s.surance implicitly ceded the point that in 1684 an even greater number of persons had "observed" Christmas.) A year later, on December 25, 1686, Sewall once again noted, "Shops open today generally and persons about their occasions." (Again, the key word here may have been "generally," because Sewall went on to acknowledge, "Some, but few, Carts [were] at Town with wood...."30) Christmas-keeping even entered into print culture during the Andros regime. The most dramatic example was an almanac, written by a resident of Saybrook, Connecticut, named John Tully and published in Boston during each of the three years of Dominion government, 168789. We have already seen that the Puritans purged New England's almanacs of all reference to Christmas and the various saints' days of the English church calendar. But Tully boldly labeled December 25 in capital letters, as "CHRISTMAS-DAY," and he also added every one of the red-letter days recognized by the Church of England. December 21 thereby became "S. THOMAS," December 26 was "S. STEVEN," and December 27 was "INNOCENTS." (In all likelihood, Tully used capital letters simply because his Boston printer did not have any red ink.) The following year,