There was war on Christmas, President Trump, waged by Christians called Puritans - The Washington Post - 0 views
-
Here’s how it generally went down, according to Stephen Nissenbaum in his book “The Battle for Christmas.” On Christmas Day, the lower classes would dress up in strange costumes to “invert” their roles: Men would dress up as women, young boys as bishops, and the lowliest peasant or the town drunk might be declared the “Lord of Misrule.”
-
They would gather into a mob and go around to the houses and estates of the well-to-do, making a racket, singing bawdy songs and demanding entry. Amazingly, most of the time they were let in and given alcohol, food and even money. There was gambling and promiscuity (often leading to marriages at the end of the misrule). Once the mob was satisfied, it would move on to the next rich person’s estate.
-
If it seems surprising that rich people would willingly let a drunken mob in their homes and get them even drunker, that’s because the alternative was worse. If a homeowner tried to block entry, the mob would break in, destroy property, assault the homeowner, frighten his wife and children, and then take the food and drink anyway.
- ...7 more annotations...