On this Christmas Eve, the second under the ‘rule of Covid’, let’s take a look at the times about 375 years ago when the ancestors of today’s covid ‘rule enforcers’, of those who have been preaching fire and brimstone and death for all who don’t adhere to ‘covid guidance’ and ‘scientific rulz’, were abolishing Christmas. The Puritans in the then Parliament were putting in legislation cancelling Christmas even before the outbreak of the Civil War:

“In January 1645 Parliament a New Directory of Public Worship which stated that there were to be no Holy Days apart from Sunday. In June 1647 Parliament passed an ordinance which confirmed the abolition of Christmas, Easter and Whitsun and during the 1650s (during the Commonwealth) legislation put in place penalties on those found attending special Christmas church services, or for closing their businesses for the day. In 1657 the Council of State urged the mayor of London to clamp down on celebrations.” (link)

It was not just that Christmas as public holiday was abolished, that feasting and special Church services were forbidden – one proposal even was that Christmas Day should be a day for fasting – there was also the prohibition of carol singing. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it, even though nowadays we mustn’t sing because it might spread covid rather than because it is ‘popish’.

Our ancestors were clearly made of sterner stuff than one would suspect. Just like today there were ‘rule enforcers’ who visited homes to make certain that no singing or eating or merriment took place. But even so, “[…] many people from all walks of life continued to celebrate it.Continuing with the celebrations was at times certainly an act of defiance, […]” (link) and from early on, people rebelled against the puritanical prohibition of Christmas. There were ‘Christmas Riots’ in various towns in the country, not least in London, where:

“[…] a crowd of apprentices assembled at Cornhill on Christmas Day, and there “in despite of authority, they set up Holly and Ivy” on the pinnacles of the public water conduit. When the lord mayor despatched some officers “to pull down these gawds,” the apprentices resisted them, forcing the mayor to rush to the scene with a party of soldiers and to break up the demonstration by force.” (link)

Doesn’t that sound familiar as well? When Charles II returned to England in 1660, one of his first Acts was to repeal all the hated puritanical Anti-Christmas legislation. Allegedly that’s why he was called ‘the Merry Monarch’ … I have my doubts though because King Charles II was not just merry on Christmas but at all other times as well, loving festivities, drink, and women … very many of them.

Sadly there’s no Merry King Charles II returning from exile, in these days, ready to repeal the decidedly un-merry covid statutes. We have instead a PM who tactlessly recommends that getting a jab even now is the best last-minute Christmas present you could give to your loved ones (link). There’s also the Arch-Covid-Puritan, that head honcho of the doom-mongers, Sir Patrick Vallance. He told the nation that he and the SAGEs are obliged to give politicians the worst-possible scenario because: ‘Science!’ For a pious, puritanical washing-of-hands after causing the wrecking of so many lives and livelihoods, his paywalled article in The Times is without compare. You can find quotes in the DM (link). 

There might or might not be a post-Christmas covid-screw-tightening akin to the killjoy edicts by the tinpot dictators of Wales, Scotland and London, the proper modern-day descendants of those 17th Century grinches who this year have forbidden public New Year’s Eve celebrations. Perhaps such celebrations will take place in private now although I doubt that we’ll see ‘News Year’s Eve Riots’.

Instead of getting a last-minute booster jab ‘for your loved ones’, or a last-minute Lateral flow Test Kit – not that they are to be had in pharmacies up and down the country (link) –  I highly recommend you get last-minute extra food and drink, especially drink, and celebrate. It’s what it sez in the bible, although the Welbys and his fearful minions would rather you didn’t refer to that book. So, as scriptural support for defiance, let me quote it here, 

“Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 8 :15)

And so it remains for me to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, with food, drink and songs galore, in the tradition of our ancestors who celebrated this day in defiance of the edicts of the present-day covid doom-mongering ‘puritans’!

 

MERRY  CHRISTMAS  AND  A  HAPPY  NEW  YEAR!

 

 

 

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(We’ll be back on Monday the 27th of December 2021)

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