If I had claimed that the name “Massachusetts” had some connection to Catholicism’s “Mass” I would indeed be embarrassing myself.
But I didn’t. And being descended from Jamestown colonials I’ve read more than most about colonial history, including the oddball Christmas hating witch hunters of New England.
For some reason pop historians love to pretend that Puritan Massachusetts was the founding of America. But Jamestown was founded a dozen years before Plymouth and its tolerant Christian tradition of celebrating Christmas remains normative American practice.
Humorless and oppressive Puritan legalism still exists but now in a secularized leftwing version. It’s alive and well and still at war with the American culture that refuses to obey it.
“But Jamestown was founded a dozen years before Plymouth and its tolerant Christian tradition of celebrating Christmas remains normative American practice.”
I KNOW. EVERYBODY KNOWS. But the subject is the PURITANS! the PURITANS had a problem with Christmas. Jamestown didn’t. PURITANS WEREN’T AT JAMESTOWN. Good grief.