On Puritans, Christmas, and Me.

I was in a shop today and there was Christmas music playing. It irritated me because I consider Christmas to be all a bit pointless, and I found myself thinking that the playing of Christmas music in shops should be banned. ‘There’s seems to be something of the Puritan in you, Jeffrey,’ I told myself. That disturbed me a little because I’d never thought of myself as having something of the Puritan in me.

I remembered that during the Commonwealth in 17th century England, Christmas was effectively banned by the Puritan Establishment under the control of Oliver Cromwell. We find the idea both absurd and despotic in these more liberal times, but the reason for the banning was that people saw Christmas as a time for licentious behaviour. There was much drunkenness and frolicsome behaviour to an extent that would normally be frowned upon. The Lord of Misrule rode over the land and held sway in the minds of the lower orders, threatening the very bedrock of decent and orderly social behaviour even if only temporarily. To the Puritans, of course, this translated into sin being allowed to run rampant, which they naturally thought it entirely right to excise.  And that brought something else to mind.

I well remember that in my younger days, Christmas was the time when the drive to experience something new in the way of female companionship was at its strongest (if you get my drift.) I saw the same in others, and office parties were renowned for being the annual risk to marital fidelity. I expect it’s still the same, in which case the Lord of Misrule seemingly continues to rides forth when the Christmas season is upon us. So here are two questions:

1. Why?

2. Is it true that there is something of the Puritan showing itself in my later years, and might it have a rational foundation?

Epilogue

I’m a curiously complex creature full of contradictions and conflicts. I’m very good at recognising the individual parts of me, but seeing the composite picture has always proved elusive. And that’s why I could well understand a line in the movie Autumn in New York, when the middle aged Richard Gere says to the young Winona Ryder ‘I’m a creep; you’re a kid. You have better things to do with your time than spending it with a guy like me.’ I wish I’d said that to somebody, just once.

2^nd Epilogue

None of the grocery stores I visit has Jacob’s Twiglets on their shelves, and I don’t know why. What’s worse, there’s never anybody to ask these days.

3^rd Epilogue

Another line from Autumn in New York: ‘You carry on like that and you’re going to end up an old man toasting yourself in the mirror with eggnog at Christmas.' Correct. And here we are back to merry old Christmas.