“Christmas was banned by the Puritans in the UK and the USA,” Jeanette Winterson reflects, “because it is such a gaudy ragbag of a festival, with something borrowed from everywhere—pagans, Romans, Norsemen, Celts, Turks—and because its celebratory free spirit, its gift-giving, topsy-turvy misrule, made it anti-authority and anti-work. It was a holiday—holy day—of the best kind, where devotion has joy in it. Life should be joyful.”
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://spectrummagazine.org/arts-essays/2022/book-review-christmas-days-jeanette-winterson