In 1659, Christmas became Illegal in the U.S. The Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted a law called the “Penalty for Keeping Christmas.” They believed that Christmas should not be celebrated because the date of Jesus’ birth was never in the Bible. They also began to see the holiday was turning into more of a secular celebration than a time to give to the poor and celebrate Jesus’ Birth. Because of this, they thought Christmas was sacrilegious, and therefore made it illegal and replaced it with a day of fasting. Anyone found celebrating Christmas had to pay five shillings (or about $48) in fines. On 25 December 1647, riots broke out at Norwich and Ipswich, and they even ended in some fatalities. The worst disturbance was in Canterbury, where a crowd of protesters smashed the shops that were opened on Christmas day and went on to seize control of the whole city. 

Because of these riots, the government finally began to open up to celebrating Christmas. Not the original version that primarily celebrated Jesus’ birth, though. Instead of primarily celebrating Jesus’ birth and giving to the poor, they began giving their kids gifts, and decided giving money to the poor was more an “extra credit” act than something most people should do. This more secular version of Christmas somehow appealed to puritan Government leaders more than the fake birth date of Jesus, and Christmas finally became a federal holiday on June 26, 1870. 

Our Christmas today is usually a mix of the religious version of Christmas as well as the more secular version, but we can thank the people who created the secular version of Christmas for being the reason it’s a federal holiday today.