Christmas Controversy: The History of Christmas Decorations in Boston

By Noah Good, Marketing Manager and History Program Educator

Every December, members of the King’s Chapel congregation gather to “green” the sanctuary, decorating the space with pine boughs, evergreen wreaths, poinsettias, and red bows.

Modern greening of the sanctuary at King's Chapel. Photograph taken by Noah Good.

“Greening” churches for Christmas is an old tradition. In the 16th century, several English churches bought holly and ivy for Christmas, as shown in their account books. The practice of decorating with greenery in the winter is much older. During the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which took place during the winter solstice, people decorated their homes with evergreens. 

While evergreen decorations are a common part of Christmas today, they used to be highly controversial in Boston, as was Christmas itself.

​In 17th century England, Christmas was a rowdy time, marked by excessive eating and drinking as well as rituals which turned the established social hierarchy on its head. 

Title page. John Taylor. A Brown Dozen of Drunkards (1648).

Historian Stephen Nissenbaum describes Christmas during this period:

Revelling could easily become rowdiness; making merry could edge into making trouble. Christmas was a season of 'misrule,' a time when ordinary behavioral restraints could be violated with impunity. It was part of what one historian has called “the world of carnival.” (Nissenbaum 85)

It should come as no surprise, then, that the puritans frowned upon Christmas. In 1659, puritan Massachusetts officially banned Christmas: celebrating the holiday was punishable with a five shilling fine. The law was repealed in 1681 after pressure from the English crown.
​
There was another reason why puritans disliked Christmas: they viewed the holiday itself as a holdover from Paganism. There is some truth to this statement. After all, there is no historical or biblical basis to believe Christ was born on December 25. Instead, Christmas lines up with the winter solstice, a holiday older than Christianity itself. 

One puritan father summed up this argument very well: “Be you not observers of festival seasons; none were ever celebrated in the times of the Apostles, nor Christmas day heard of. Besides, it hath been never yet proved that Christ was born on December, the 25th but more probable in September.”

But Christmas officially arrived in Boston in 1686, whether the puritans wanted it or not. 

​That year, a new governor, appointed by the King, took over control of Massachusetts. Governor Edmund Andros arrived in Boston on December 20, 1686.

William Henry Whitmore, Sir Edmund Andros. A Memoir of Sir Edmund Andros. (Boston: T.R. Marvin and Sons, 1868). Encyclopædia Britannica.

That Christmas, two religious services were held at Boston’s Town House. Andros attended both, “with a Red-Coat going on his right hand and Capt. George on the left.” But puritan Boston did not recognize the holiday: shops stayed open and people went about their business as usual. 

​In the coming years, puritan magistrate Samuel Sewall noted in his diary whether shops in Boston stayed open on Christmas. In 1697, he “took occasion to dehort [his children] from Christmas-keeping, and charged them to forbear.”

John Smibert, Samuel Sewall, 1729, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In 1749, work began on a new building for King’s Chapel. Four years later, as construction continued, the congregation wasn’t able to worship in their own space. Leaders at King’s Chapel turned to their neighbor for help: Old South Meeting House, a Congregationalist church. Congregationalists descend from the puritans, and Old South Meeting House was one of the first puritan churches in Boston. In October 1753, King’s Chapel leadership asked Old South if they could use their space to hold Christmas service. In early December, Old South Meeting house replied that King’s Chapel would be welcome to use their building, so long as they “would not decorate it with Spruce.” Spruce is a kind of evergreen tree, and its branches might have been used to decorate the chapel at the time. 

It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that Christmas started to become popular in New England. An 1893 Boston Globe article shows how Christmas gained popularity around this time. In this article, a reporter interviews several older men about their childhood memories of Christmas. Many didn’t experience Christmas until later in their lives. Dr. E. E. Hale said, “The first public recognition of Christmas that I ever noticed were evergreens at King’s chapel and at St Paul’s church about the year 35 or 36.” Another man, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson also said King’s Chapel was one of his first Christmas experiences: he went to visit in 1840 to see the decorations. 

​Higginson might have seen decorations like these, recorded in an engraving from 1856.

Interior View of King’s Chapel, Dressed for the Christmas Holidays, 1856, GC002.01.MA.3300.001. Prints and engravings collection, 1830s-1920s. Historic New England.

Newspaper articles from the end of the nineteenth century describe King’s Chapel as being decorated with hemlock branches and evergreens for Christmas. A reporter in 1897 said the decorations were striking, “[producing] an excellent effect in the contrast of white and green.” 

​By 1894, Christmas decorations were a growing market in Boston. One reporter remarked, “To the young it may seem almost incredible that this branch of business has all sprung up within a score of years, but it is a truth that 20 years ago Christmas decorations were hardly known in the market.”

Today, Christmas decorations can be found all across Boston. It’s strange to imagine a time where they were so foreign, and when Christmas itself was suppressed in the city. 

​If you’d like to see King’s Chapel’s own Christmas greenery, stop by for a visit! Our December hours are Monday and Thursday-Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm.

Bibliography

Brand, John, Henry Ellis, and J. O. (James Orchard) Halliwell-Phillipps. “Evergreen-Decking at Christmas.” In Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain: Chiefly Illustrating the Origin of Our Vulgar and Provincial Customs, Ceremonies, and Superstitions, with University of California. London, Bell & Daldy, 1873. http://archive.org/details/bub_gb_8nY9AQAAMAAJ.

Charpentier, Faye. “Decking the Halls: The History of ‘Greening’ for the Holidays at King’s Chapel.” King’s Chapel History Blog, December 4, 2020. https://www.kings-chapel.org/historyblog/decking-the-halls-the-history-of-greening-for-the-holidays-at-kings-chapel.

“Christ Child’s Birth: Boston Churches Generally Had Special Observances.” The Boston Globe. December 27, 1897. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/430844904/?match=1&terms=christmas%20AND%20decorations.

Churco, Jennie M.. “Christmas and the Roman Saturnalia.” The Classical Outlook 16, no. 3 (1938): 25–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44006272. 

“Greens for Christmas.” The Boston Globe. December 23, 1894. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/430855164/?match=1&terms=christmas
%20AND%20decorations.

Gregory, Jeremy. “Refashioning Puritan New England: The Church of England in British North America, c. 1680-c. 1770.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 20 (2010): 85–112. JSTOR.

Legacy of a dying father bequeathed to his beloved children: or sundry directions in order unto a well regulated conversation, 1693-1694, MS0909. The Congregational Library & Archives, Boston, MA.

“Local Intelligence: Christmas Services.” The Boston Evening Transcript. December 23, 1876. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/735186400/?match=1&clipping_
id=186322050

“The Nativity: How the Great Festival Will Be Observed Today.” The Boston Globe. December 25, 1874. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/428237335/?match=1&terms=christmas%20AND%20decorations. 

Nissenbaum, Stephen W. “Christmas in Early New England, 1620-1820: Puritanism, Popular Culture, and the Printed Word.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 106, no. 1 (1996).

Sewall, Samuel. Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729. Second. Volume 1. Massachusetts Historical Society, 1878. https://archive.org/details/diaryofsamuelsew01sewaiala/
page/230/mode/2upq=%22king%27s+chapel%22.

Simpson, Jacqueline, and Roud, Steve. “Christmas decorations.” In A Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford University Press, 2003. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780198607663.001.0001/
​acref-9780198607663-e-185?rskey=9yrZd0&result=9. 

Wardens and Vestry minutes for 31 October 1753 and 5 December 1753. Ms. N-1867, Wardens and Vestry 1687-1917, Box 1, Folder 13. King’s Chapel Archives, Massachusetts Historical Society. 

​“When I Was a Boy: Christmas Recollections of Col Higginson, ex Gov Claflin, Rev Dr S. F. Smith., Edward Everett Hale and Charles Theodroe Russell.” The Boston Globe. December 24, 1893. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/430705425/?match=1&terms=christmas%20AND%20decorations%20AND%20%22king%27s
%20chapel%22