Thursday 26 December 2013

Bah Humbug!

In modern usage, the word 'puritan' describes someone who is a bit dour. It is sometimes used to describe someone who adheres to strict moral or religious principles. Who were the Puritans? Well the fervour has died down a bit, but puritans became a major political force in England. Eventually coming to power as a result of the First English Civil War. 

A group of Christian fundamentalists who had given up on crusading and now were driven to reform the English church. Their leader was Oliver Cromwell. The war was brought around because Puritans zealots were blocked from changing the established church from within. Their activities until then were severely restricted in England by laws controlling the practice of religion. As he was the head of the church, the king had to go!
In one of his more lucid moments, the Puritan fundamentalist leader Oliver Cromwell, passed a law that made Christmas illegal. Oliver was a bit of a serious dude who considered enjoyment through feasting and revelry was bad for the soul and totally immoral.
If Olly thought it was bad then -  I wonder what he would some 366 years later think about Christmas now! Olly despite all his short comings was a very devout protestant.  He considered that having a good time on a holy day to be immoral and banned the Christmas festivities. I guess he was a typical 'grumpy old curmudgeon' of his times. With his army of followers he was able to make a few changes around the place.

Each year retailers start ‘the season’ earlier than the year before. The now heavily commercialised Christmas attempts to recruit us all into the shopping feeding frenzy. Until recently all 'gift' products had a price and anything that was left over was sold off in the new year sales.  Now we have 'Frenzied Fridays' where people out for a bit of a quiet shop at their local supermarket get trampled underfoot in the stampede of humanity that has seemingly lost the plot. 

Not only that,  its also having to get up at dawn on Christmas Day to start the preparations for the family meal. Then there is the thought police and the mumbo jumbo of political correctness. I seems that now, you can't say Merry Christmas, because that might offend somebody who is not of the Christian persuasion. It's time we passed a new law that makes the commercialisation of Christmas illegal. Following the latest trend of naming the new law after someone or other. We could call it Oliver's Law.

Bah humbug has a lot going for it.

Later....



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