As Fairfielders gather on the Town Green this December to watch the tree lighting that marks the beginning of the holiday season, it is difficult to imagine that Christmas was not a special day for Fairfield’s Puritan settlers. No celebrations. No trees. No presents. No Santa. Matter of fact, it was against the law to celebrate Christmas in New England. And horror of horrors, mincemeat pie was targeted as sinful for its overly rich ingredients. Christmas was reserved for the sanctity of the church.

Oliver Cromwell said that Christians had no business marking the birth of Christ with eating, drinking and making merry. He abolished Christmas in 1657, and two years later, he ordered the authorities in Massachusetts and Connecticut to ban all Christmas celebrations.

In part the order reads,

“it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way…shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county.”
Massachusetts Bay Colony
May 11, 1659