Editing Father Christmas (section)

===Puritan revolution—enter 'Father Christmas'===
 
The rise of [[puritanism]] led to accusations of [[Papist|popery]] in connection with pre-[[English Reformation|reformation]] Christmas traditions.<ref name="ODEF119-120"/> When the Puritans took control of government in the mid-1640s they made concerted efforts to abolish Christmas and to outlaw its traditional customs.<ref name="HistoryToday v35,12">
{{cite journal |url=http://www.historytoday.com/chris-durston/puritan-war-christmas |title=The Puritan War on Christmas |author=Durston, Chris |journal=History Today |date=December 1985 |volume=35 |issue=12 |access-date=14 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160115195307/http://www.historytoday.com/chris-durston/puritan-war-christmas |archive-date=15 January 2016 |url-status=live}}
</ref> For 15 years from around 1644, before and during the [[Interregnum (1649–1660)|Interregnum of 1649-1660]], the celebration of Christmas in England was forbidden.<ref name="HistoryToday v35,12"/> The suppression was given greater legal weight from June 1647 when [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|parliament]] passed an ''Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals''<ref name="Ordinance1647">
{{cite book | url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/p954 | title=An Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals | publisher=Official parliamentary record | date=8 June 1647 | access-date=16 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160127020244/http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/p954 | archive-date=27 January 2016 | url-status=live}} Quoted in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660, ed. CH Firth and RS Rait (London, 1911), p 954.
</ref> which formally abolished Christmas in its entirety, along with the other traditional church festivals of [[Easter]] and [[Whitsun]].<ref name="Merry212"/>

It was in this context that [[Cavalier|Royalist]] pamphleteers linked the old traditions of Christmas with the cause of King and Church, while radical puritans argued for the suppression of Christmas both in its religious and its secular aspects.<ref name="HistoryToday v10,12">
{{cite journal|url=http://www.historytoday.com/jar-pimlott/christmas-under-puritans|title=Christmas under the Puritans|journal=History Today|volume=10|issue=12|year=1960|author=Pimlott, JAR|access-date=23 December 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130128195917/http://www.historytoday.com/jar-pimlott/christmas-under-puritans|archive-date=28 January 2013|url-status=live}}
</ref> In the hands of Royalist [[Pamphlet wars|pamphlet writers]], Old Father Christmas served as the symbol and spokesman of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer,<ref name="EnglishYear385"/> and it became popular for Christmastide's defenders to present him as lamenting past times.<ref name="Austin7">
{{cite book | url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | title=The Celebration of Christmastide in England from the Civil Wars to its Victorian Transformation | publisher=University of Leeds (BA dissertation) | author=Austin, Charlotte | year=2006 | location=Leeds | pages=7 | access-date=14 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129002523/http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | archive-date=29 January 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref>

''The Arraignment, Conviction and Imprisoning of Christmas'' (January 1646) describes a discussion between a [[town crier]] and a [[Cavalier|Royalist]] gentlewoman enquiring after Old Father Christmas who 'is gone from hence'.<ref name="HistoryToday v35,12"/> Its anonymous author, a [[Roundhead|parliamentarian]], presents Father Christmas in a negative light, concentrating on his allegedly [[Papist|popish]] attributes:  "For age, this hoarie headed man was of great yeares, and as white as snow; he entred the Romish Kallender time out of mind; [he] is old ...; he was full and fat as any dumb Docter of them all. He looked under the consecrated Laune sleeves as big as Bul-beefe ... but, since the catholike liquor is taken from him, he is much wasted, so that he hath looked very thin and ill of late ... But yet some other markes that you may know him by, is that the wanton Women dote after him; he helped them to so many new Gownes, Hatts, and Hankerches, and other fine knacks, of which he hath a pack on his back, in which is good store of all sorts, besides the fine knacks that he got out of their husbands' pockets for household provisions for him. He got Prentises, Servants, and Schollars many play dayes, and therefore was well beloved by them also, and made all merry with Bagpipes, Fiddles, and other musicks, Giggs, Dances, and Mummings."<ref name="Arraignment">
{{cite book | url=http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Text/arraignment_conviction_and_i.htm | title=The Arraignment Conviction and Imprisonment of Christmas on S. Thomas Day Last | publisher=Simon Minc’d Pye, for Cissely Plum-Porridge | author=Anon | year=1645 | location=London, "at the signe of the Pack of Cards in Mustard-Alley, in Brawn Street" | access-date=15 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151230012423/http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Text/arraignment_conviction_and_i.htm | archive-date=30 December 2015 | url-status=live}} Reprinted in Ashton, John, [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19979/19979-h/19979-h.htm#CHAPTER_IV ''A righte Merrie Christmasse!!! The Story of Christ-tide''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181008155033/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19979/19979-h/19979-h.htm#CHAPTER_IV |date=8 October 2018 }}, Leadenhall Press Ltd, London, 1894, Chapter IV.
</ref>

[[File:Frontispiece to ''The Vindication of Christmas'' by John Taylor, 1652.png|thumb|alt=Woodcut|Father Christmas (centre) depicted in ''The Vindication of Christmas'', 1652]]
The character of 'Christmas' (also called 'father Christmas') speaks in a pamphlet of 1652, immediately after the [[English Civil War]], published anonymously by the satirical Royalist poet [[John Taylor (poet)|John Taylor]]: ''The Vindication of Christmas or, His Twelve Yeares' Observations upon the Times''. A frontispiece illustrates an old, bearded Christmas in a brimmed hat, a long open robe and undersleeves. Christmas laments the pitiful quandary he has fallen into since he came into "this headlesse countrey". "I was in good hope that so long a misery would have made them glad to bid a merry Christmas welcome. But welcome or not welcome, I am come...." He concludes with a verse: "Lets dance and sing, and make good chear, / For Christmas comes but once a year."<ref name="Vindication">
{{cite book | url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | title=The Vindication of Christmas or, His Twelve Yeares' Observations upon the Times | publisher=G Horton | author=Taylor, John (published anonymously) | year=1652 | location=London | access-date=14 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129002523/http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/leveller-tracts-7#toc_lf1542-07_head_118 | archive-date=29 January 2016 | url-status=live}} (Printed date 1653)
</ref>

[[File:FatherChristmastrial.jpg|left|upright|thumb|alt=Engraving|Father Christmas, as illustrated in Josiah King's two pamphlets of 1658 (''The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas'') during the Puritan ban on Christmas, and 1678 when it has been restored as a holy day]]
In 1658 Josiah King published ''The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas'' (the earliest citation for the specific term 'Father Christmas' recognised by the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'').<ref name="OED">{{Cite OED | Father Christmas | date = March 2016 | access-date= 25 November 2020 }}</ref> King portrays Father Christmas as a white-haired old man who is on trial for his life based on evidence laid against him by the [[Commonwealth of England|Commonwealth]]. Father Christmas's counsel mounts the defence: "Me thinks my Lord, the very Clouds blush, to see this old Gentleman thus egregiously abused. if at any time any have abused themselves by immoderate eating, and drinking or otherwise spoil the creatures, it is none of this old mans fault; neither ought he to suffer for it; for example the Sun and the Moon are by the heathens worship’d are they therefore bad because idolized? so if any abuse this old man, they are bad for abusing him, not he bad, for being abused." The jury acquits.<ref name="TCP">
{{cite web | url=http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/2011/12/23/giving-christmas-his-due/ | title=Giving Christmas his Due | date=23 December 2011 | access-date=15 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160126100640/http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/2011/12/23/giving-christmas-his-due/ | archive-date=26 January 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref><ref name="Tryall1658">
{{cite book | url=http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A47419.0001.001/1:7?rgn=div1;view=fulltext | title=The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas | publisher=Thomas Johnson | author=King, Josiah | year=1658 | location=London | access-date=15 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160127024549/http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A47419.0001.001/1:7?rgn=div1;view=fulltext | archive-date=27 January 2016 | url-status=live}}
</ref>