When Christmas was banned in 17th-century England

From California-

Shall Christmas be banned this year? Hardly will these words hit print before some readers will begin to roll their eyes and blame such a suggestion on another lawsuit by the ACLU, blame their liberal friends for being afraid to offend another religious group or bemoan the general secularization of our society. But the ban on Christmas first began more than 300 years ago, and it was Christians who wanted to see it thrown off the calendar. Welcome to England in the 17th century!

For a great many centuries Christmas had been a religious festival in England, and it was a national holiday. At the time of the Anglican Reformation, the reformers placed the venerable holy day in the reformed liturgy as one of the holy days in the Book of Common Prayer. But many of the Protestants in England were still suspicious of Christmas, and many of these were none too pleased at what they viewed as an incomplete reformation of the church by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. But under the heavy fist of the House of Tudor, Christmas and a great deal of other medieval traditions remained in the church.

More here-

http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/social-affairs/20131218/when-christmas-was-banned-in-17th-century-england