So it’s Christmas Eve, and in the U.S., the green Grinch monster invented by “Dr. Seuss” is a well-known figure who tries to destroy Christmas. But in the 1640s, there was an actual Grinch-movement to ban the holiday. Most British people put the blame for this unpopular episode on the English military leader-cum-religious zealot Oliver Cromwell, but the hostility lobbied against Christmas was actually a broader Protestant movement.
Here you see an illustration from a popular ballad from 1647 called “The World Turned Upside Down.” The pictures of fish in the sky, buildings facing downwards, and a man with limbs all scrambled up show that the artist wanted to show that whatever had been normal was now topsy-turvy. The song was a protest against the bans against Christmas.
Bawdy revelry, feasting, and Christmas games were much beloved traditions from Medieval England and into Tudor times. But the religious movements that spun into the 1600s were strict and highly intolerant. The celebrations of Christmas seemed to be exactly opposed to Christ’s will, according to Protestants (who also were keen to distance themselves to the Roman Catholics who supported Christmas).
The English Parliament passed the first Christmas ban in 1644, when it was presumably supposed to be a one-off thing with the public directed to spend the day fasting and praying. But the legislation grew more intense in following years — in 1647, Christmas, Easter, and the Whitsun (another Christian holy day) festivities were not only banned, but shops were to be closed and fines could be levied against those who transgressed.
As you may imagine, many folks did not cotton to having their fun times taken away. There were protest riots (some of these were also excuses for the anti-Protestant Royalists to push their agenda), and disregardings of the laws, and things like this “World Turned Upside Down” song:
“Holy-dayes are despis’d, new fashions are devis’d.
Old Christmas is kickt out of Town.
Yet let’s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn’d upside down.”.
Cromwell supported but did not invent the ban against Christmas, which was overturned in 1600 after he had died.
Sources: “Did Oliver Cromwell Really Ban Christmas?” @historicengland.uk. @ The Cromwell Museum, “Did Oliver Cromwell ban Christmas?”
