For 22 years, Bostonians who wished a fellow colonist so much as a "Merry Christmas" would have to shell out five shillings for flaunting their Yuletide spirit. On May 11, 1659, Puritanical theocrats brought the hammer down on Christmas celebrations, enacting a political ban on the holiday and charging fines to Christmas sympathizers. The records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's general court shed some light on just how the Puritans managed to shutter holiday celebrations, stating: 
 
 ...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, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county. 
 
 The ban, enacted to put the kibosh on general holiday rowdiness—Reverend Increase Mather (pictured above), a New Englander and father of Salem Witch Trials figurehead Cotton Mather, denounced the holiday season as "consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in Mad Mirth"—held steady through 1681. 
 
 Christmas customs prior to the ban were a little more unruly than hanging wreaths and caroling. One popular tradition, called wassailing, involved lower class colonists demanding food and drink from citizens of wealthier stature in exchange for toasting their good health. If denied, proceedings often got violent. 
 
 Though Christmas wasn't officially banned until 1659, journals from the Puritans' first Christmas in the colony illustrate that the number of settlers who celebrated Christmas was split. By the second Christmas—after a sickness-plagued year—the holiday was already unofficially prohibited. 
 
 Puritan rule, which banned seasonal delicacies like mince pies and pudding, decreed working on Christmas as mandatory and dispatched town criers on Christmas Eve to shout "No Christmas, No Christmas" through the streets of Boston. The outlawing of Christmas was also a regional, purely Puritanian restriction—farther south, Jamestown settler John Smith reported that Christmas was "enjoyed by all and passed without incident." 
 
 Christmas returned to the Massachusetts Colony in 1681—sort of. When newly appointed royal governor Sir Edmund Andros (who also turned back a Puritan ban on Saturday night activities) sponsored and attended Christmas services in 1686, he was heavily guarded by a regiment of redcoats. 
 
 Bostonian judge Samuel Sewall kept a chronicle of how Christmas was celebrated in his native colony, noting that celebrations remained sparse. Wrote Sewall in a 1685 diary entry: "Carts come to Town and Shops open as is usual." Working was no longer a necessity on Christmas Day, but had become a staple after a 22-year lack of Yuletide traditions. 
 
 Celebrating Christmas in Boston stayed out of vogue through the mid-1800s; public school students caught skipping class on Christmas Day in 1869, the year before Ulysses S. Grant named Christmas a national holiday, still risked expulsion. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow put a poetic spin on Boston's Christmas cold spell in 1858, acknowledging the Puritanical footprint left on New England's holiday spirit. ||||| Complaining about Christmas is one of the most enduring of Christmas traditions. It's not so much the holiday itself that bothers us. It's the way other people insist on celebrating it. In his new book The War on Christmas, Fox News host John Gibson argues for a more Christian Christmas, one that includes crèches and carols in public schools and city halls. "Christians are coming to retake their place in the public square, and the most natural battleground in this war is Christmas," he writes. With their campaign for the phrase "Merry Christmas" in stores and their brief boycott of Target, religious advocacy groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and the American Family Association are trying to prove him right. 
 
 Gibson begins his book with an ode to the Christmas of his youth and says that he's defending traditional public celebration of the holiday from bullying ACLU lawyers and other secularists who are perpetrating a "Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday," as the subtitle of his book puts it. As a matter of American history, however, some of the strongest complaints about the public celebration of Christmas have been lodged from within the Christian tradition—by devout Christians who had little use for the holiday. For a surprising number of American believers, the chief concern wasn't putting Christ back into Christmas. It was taking Christmas out of Christianity. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 
 
 Liberal plots notwithstanding, the Americans who succeeded in banning the holiday were the Puritans of 17th-century Massachusetts. Between 1659 and 1681, Christmas celebrations were outlawed in the colony, and the law declared that anyone caught "observing, by abstinence from labor, feasting or any other way any such days as Christmas day, shall pay for every such offense five shillings." Finding no biblical authority for celebrating Jesus' birth on Dec. 25, the theocrats who ran Massachusetts regarded the holiday as a mere human invention, a remnant of a heathen past. They also disapproved of the rowdy celebrations that went along with it. "How few there are comparatively that spend those holidays … after an holy manner," the Rev. Increase Mather lamented in 1687. "But they are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in Mad Mirth." 
 
 After the English Restoration government reclaimed control of Massachusetts from the Puritans in the 1680s, one of the first acts of the newly appointed royal governor of the colony was to sponsor and attend Christmas religious services. Perhaps fearing a militant Puritan backlash, for the 1686 services he was flanked by redcoats. The Puritan disdain for the holiday endured: As late as 1869, public-school kids in Boston could be expelled for skipping class on Christmas Day. 
 
 The Puritans are the most cited example of anti-Christmas spirit, but not the only one. Quakers, too, took a pass, reasoning that, in the words of 17th-century Quaker apologist Robert Barclay, "All days are alike holy in the sight of God." The Quakers never translated their dismissal of Christmas into legislation in their stronghold in Colonial Pennsylvania. But local meetings, as the Quakers call their assemblies, urged their members to disdain Christmas and to be "zealous in their testimony against the holding up of such days." As late as 1810, the Philadelphia Democratic Press reported that few Pennsylvanians celebrated the holiday. 
 
 Observance of Christmas, or the lack thereof, was one way to differentiate among the Christian sects of Colonial and 19th-century America. Anglicans, Moravians, Dutch Reformed, and Lutherans, to name just a few, did; Quakers, Puritans, Separatists, Baptists, and some Presbyteriansdid not. An 1855 New York Times report on Christmas services in the city noted that Baptist and Methodist churches were closed because they "do not accept the day as a holy one," while Episcopal and Catholic churches were open and "decked with evergreens." New England Congregationalist preacher Henry Ward Beecher remembered decorative greenery as an exotic touch that one could see only in Episcopal churches, "a Romish institution kept up by the Romish church." 
 
 Naturally, some celebrants of the holiday complained about the abstainers. In 1867, Reformed Church minister Henry Harbaugh protested that Presbyterians in his Pennsylvania neighborhood "spend the day working as on any other day. Their children grow up knowing nothing of brightly lit Christmas trees, nor Christmas presents. God have mercy on these Presbyterians, these pagans." You can hear the echo of that sentiment today, in the criticism of the megachurches that have announced that they will be closed on Christmas, because their leaders think congregations and church staff would rather remain home with their families. "Our culture does not need any encouragement to be more self-centered or narcissistic, or to stay at home on Sunday," Bible scholar Ben Witherington III wrote on Beliefnet last week. "Shame on you, megachurches." ||||| New England ’s blue laws were put down by early settlers to enforce proper behavior on Sundays. (The origin of the term is unclear. Some have said the laws were printed on blue paper, while others have said the word “blue” was meant to disparage those like the “blue noses” who imposed rigid moral codes on others.) 
 
 Over decades, many of those laws — which banned commerce, entertainment and the sale of alcohol, among other things — were tossed aside or ignored, or exemptions were granted. In some cases, the statutes were extended to holidays and barred retailers specifically from operating on Thanksgiving or Christmas . 
 
 Maine granted an exception to L. L. Bean, whose store in Freeport is open around the clock every day, including Christmas. When the blue laws, which had faded, were revived in the 1950s, the store in Freeport was already operating 24/7, said Carolyn Beem, a spokeswoman. She said that the store, which originally catered to hunters and fishermen who shopped at odd hours, was grandfathered in and allowed to stay open on the holidays. 
 
 Nationwide, a protest is developing against Thanksgiving Day sales. Workers at some stores have threatened to strike, saying the holiday openings were disrupting their family time. Online petitions have drawn hundreds of thousands of signatures protesting the move. The stores say that many of their workers have volunteered to work on the holiday, when they will get extra pay, and that consumers wanted to shop early. It is not yet clear what effect the protests might have. 
 
 Photo 
 
 At the same time, this corner of New England is serving as something of a bulwark against the forces of commercialism. 
 
 Even the Retailers Association of Massachusetts is treading gently on the notion of Thanksgiving sales. 
 
 “There hasn’t been any outcry from our members over the years pushing this,” said Bill Rennie, vice president of the association. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 But, as Thanksgiving shopping becomes more common, he said, “it may be time to have a discussion about it.” 
 
 Blue laws seem anachronistic when people can shop anytime online, he said. 
 
 There is also the case of simple economics. These states are already at risk of losing sales to stores in New Hampshire , which has no sales tax . Now, Mr. Rennie pointed out, they could lose even more in the holiday bargain rush when stores in New Hampshire are open and stores here are closed. 
 
 Still, Barry Finegold, a Massachusetts state senator whose district abuts New Hampshire, said that so far, none of the retailers in his district had asked for a change in the law. 
 
 Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. 
 
 “My phone has not been ringing off the hook,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s not a national tragedy if Walmart can’t open at 8 o’clock on Thanksgiving Day.” 
 
 Even several shoppers at Plymouth’s Walmart Supercenter said they did not want the store open on Thursday. 
 
 “Leave the holidays alone,” said Carole A. Maiona, 72, a retired medical records worker, as her husband wheeled a shopping cart out of the store the other day. “The family should be together and not out shopping and supplying Walmart or whoever with more money.” 
 
 Photo 
 
 William Lorenzo, 35, who serves in the Coast Guard, said Thanksgiving sales were unfair to employees. “It’s not very American to make these people work on a holiday,” he said, packing his groceries into his van. 
 
 His wife, Nicole, 33, agreed — to a point. She confessed that she went shopping last year at 5 a.m. on Black Friday. “I don’t go just to go,” she said. “But if I can get a better deal — we’re a family of five, one income — if I can get a deal, I’ll get the deal.” 
 
 Some shoppers said they were so eager for bargains that they would drive to New Hampshire on Thanksgiving. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 “We’re going,” said Jen Gallagher, 34, who works in grant management. Early odd-hour shopping has, for her, become a tradition. 
 
 “I like the hustle and bustle of it,” she said. Her husband stays home with the children, “and I sneak out,” she said. “And before anybody wakes up, I’m done, the gifts are hidden.” 
 
 Beyond the malls, Plymouth has its version of a Thanksgiving mob scene. The Plimoth Plantation, a living museum (spelled the old-fashioned way) that tells the story of the original colonists, draws about 4,000 visitors on Thanksgiving Day, about half of whom will have dinner there. 
 
 A family does not have to have come over on the Mayflower to appreciate Thanksgiving here. Olly deMacedo, who came to this country from the Cape Verde islands in 1966 when he was 7, started his journey on a freighter. Now, he is a driving force behind the town’s annual Thanksgiving celebration, which includes a parade, food festival and concerts. All are held the weekend before Thanksgiving — 200,000 people came this year — so as not to interfere with the day itself. 
 
 “To have the parade on Thursday, or shopping on Thursday, would pull people away from the very thing we’re celebrating,” Mr. deMacedo said. 
 
 Among those in the parade Saturday was Rebecca Tuchak, 33, a restaurant manager, who was dressed in Pilgrim garb and riding a float that honored the first Thanksgiving. As she held her 3-month-old daughter, she said she had been staggered to learn that of the original 102 Mayflower passengers, about half had died during their first winter here. 
 
 “It’s amazing to think of all the things we have and all the things they didn’t have, and yet they still gave thanks,” she said. “I don’t think you’ll find a group of people more against opening stores on Thanksgiving than us.”
– The War on Christmas existed long before Fox News. In the 17th century, it was an indisputable fact: Boston Puritans canceled Christmas for 22 years, and those caught celebrating were hit with a fine, Mental Floss explains. A court order in 1659 warned against "observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way"; the ban remained until 1681. Working was required, and concerned Puritans actually sent out town criers to yell, "No Christmas! No Christmas!" At the time, however, holiday celebrations were quite different from today's. For instance, the practice of "wassailing" saw less-wealthy colonists seeking food and drink from their richer counterparts—and when they didn't get it, things could get violent. The Rev. Increase Mather, meanwhile, was troubled by holidays spent "playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in Mad Mirth," he wrote in 1687, as Slate and the Massachusetts Travel Journal have noted. In 1681, governor Sir Edmund Andros ended the ban—but it wasn't until the late 19th century that Christmas celebrations got popular in the area.