The following is from Associated Press and is offered here for information on
how your Massachusetts ancestors may have lived.  Associated Press news is
available on CompuServe.  Type: GO APV from any CompuServe prompt.
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                     Christmas banned in Mass. until 1856

         (ASSOCIATED PRESS) - Christmas, with the traditonal images of
         sleigh rides, snow-covered bridges and gatherings by the
         hearth, was outlawed in Massachusetts by puritanic law until
         the 19th century.

         "When the early Puritans settled here they were dead set
         against the old English yuletide customs as popery or
         paganism," said Jim Cyphers, a historian and analyst in the
         Massachusetts Archives.

         "So from the earliest days the commonwealth banned Christmas.
         You could be fined or jailed for not observing it as a
         working day."

         "The first time that Christmas was proclaimed a holiday was
         1856, and the Boston public schools were even open until
         1870," Cyphers said.  "So Scrooge was alive and well for
         quite a while."

         It was not until the fourth century that Dec. 25 was chosen
         as a day of Christian celebration, corresponding to pagan
         celebrations of the winter solstice.

         Puritans were aghast at the appointment of an apparently
         random date as Christ's birthday and the gaiety of the
         celebration.

         When they came to power in England in 1642, the Puritans
         outlawed Christmas celebrations; their fervor against popery
         and paganism had already carried across the Atlantic to the
         New World.

         One Christmas in New England, Gov. William Bradford told
         street sweepers: "Your conscience may not let you work on
         Christmas, but my conscience can't let you play while
         everybody else is out working.", said Randy Mason, a research
         associate at Plimouth Plantation.

         The plantation is a recreated 17th-century village, near
         where the Pilgrims landed in 1620.

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