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. 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. 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. 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.
– 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.