Quaker Christmas Over the Years

By Annette Castillo-R.

As December makes its arrival marked with cooler weather and cloudy skies, so does the giddy anticipation of many across the nation as one of the most popular and biggest holidays inches closer. Christmas, with its colorful decorations and iconic tree, is quite a nostalgic one for Americans. As for both children and adults, it’s a time to not only spend time together with family and friends and eat special meals, but also one of exchanging thoughtful cards and gifts. Many can remember the age-old tradition of leaving milk and cookies under the Christmas tree for Santa Claus to come down the chimney and leave their long-awaited present. However, as the United States is a melting pot of people and religions, not every group celebrates or even interprets the holiday the same way and the Religious Society of Friends is one of them.

Like many of the common holidays celebrated across the nation, Christmas has many schools of thoughts among the Quaker community. According to early Quaker beliefs, all days were to be considered as “holy”, and to have one day be celebrated as “holier” went against what God intended for them. For them, the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ was meant to be observed on every waking day of the calendar (3;7;10;11). The Quakers as a community, both international and domestic, observe something referred to as “the testimony of simplicity” by the Religious Society of Friends. This is essentially a description of actions and practice among the Quakers, which center around the concept of simplicity in everyday life, dress, and speech (1;3;7;10;11;13). So with that context, the holiday as celebrated by the rest of England where this community originated from, was seen as extremely excessive and pompous (3;7). It’s important to understand exactly what Christmas is, outside of popular social tradition, and go back in history to see why the early Quakers may have seen the festivities around the holiday as incongruent with their beliefs.

“Christmas Eve,” by Joseph Hoover, 1830-1913, https://www.loc.gov/resource/pga.01601/. (No relation to Herbert Hoover)

Christmas, as commonly known, is the annual festivity that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity. The basic summary of the narrative behind Christmas’ conception is that Jesus Christ was born in Bethelem to Mary and Joseph in the stables of an overcrowded inn. His birth was proclaimed to nearby shepherds by angels and they set out to spread the news of the promised Messiah. In countries with Christian followings, Christmas can look quite different, each one taking and mixing pre-Christian, Christian and secular traditions and beliefs. The most popular ones worldwide and certainly in America, are the decoration of Christmas trees, exchanging gifts among friends and family, special grand meals, and for children, the strong belief in Santa Claus (Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, and many other titles) who brings presents to the well-behaved. Of course, being a public holiday in many parts of the world, Christmas is observed not just by most Christians but also the non-religious, becoming a major economic boost for businesses and corporations to sell. In fact, it’s most likely not too far-fetched to say that commercialization is one of its biggest features nowadays. However, this was a feature that the early Quakers seemed to have disliked as well.

The Religious Society of Friends originated in mid-17th century England, where by that time Christmas had become a very strong fixture with long-held traditions and Catholic canon laws demanding strict observance and the pause of commerce during the festivities (7;8). During this pause of daily life, twelve days were dedicated to the preparation for Christmas Day with church-going, feasting, games and entertainment which weren’t too different from the modern activities of today. However, for the Quakers, Christmas seemed to be more focused on drink, consumerism and materialist excess (2;9). One of the Founders of the Religious Society of Friends, George Fox voiced the general discontent and discomfort of the Quakers writing “When the time called Christmas came, while others were feasting and sporting themselves, I looked out to poor widows from house to house, and gave them some money.” (4) He went much further in an unpublished paper that isn’t attached to his journal, writing (in cipher or shorthand) “You that be observing the day you call Christmas, with your fullness, with your cards, with your playgames, with your disguising, with your feastings and abundance of idleness and destroying of the creatures…”. (7)

The elite often had constant, vast feasts with luxurious amounts of beef, poultry (including peacock and swan) and mutton and other uncommon foods reserved for only the ones who could afford it (5;14) . The Twelve Days of Advent carried with them the expectation of fasting leading up to a feast on Christmas Day. However, just as importantly, it expected charity and hospitality by the rich, which by then, as noted by a speech by King James I (1566-1625), where he chastised landowners and the aristocracy for their increased interest in capital instead (9;10). Even a great portion of the common folk invested their days in drink, scandalous games and gambling and to the point that even Anglican bishop Hugh Latimer lamented that Christians “dishonoured Christ more in the 12 days of Christmas than in all the 12 months besides.” (10).

To make their point, the early Quakers did not partake in the common Christmas celebrations and the members who were business owners ran their shops as they would any day. As mentioned previously, this was against the Corpus luris Canonici law. Quakers were frequently arrested, imprisoned and tortured for daring to keep their shops open during Christmas. In Quaker records, many instances of oppression were noted during the holiday, “for working upon the day called Xmas day…put into the stocks (a torture device); “Some of the troopers of my Lord of Oxford’s regument…forced them to shut their shops.” Quakers were already a persecuted religious minority in an England dominated by the Church of England, and such instances of torture and repression for disagreeing with certain Christian conventions were not uncommon (7).

However, as Friends eventually fled England and immigrated to North America in hopes of being able to practice their faith without persecution or punishment, they carried with them this same testimony of simplicity and beliefs regarding Christmas. Quakers did face persecution, repression, torture and death from the Puritan majority, but this was more on their differences of belief and practice, as well non-compliance with observing the Sabbath rather than Christmas. The Puritans didn’t observe Christmas either, but this was attributed to their belief that Christmas had pagan elements (some more conservative Friends also shared this belief) (14).

Yet like all religions tend to do, there were changes in opinions about this holiday from region to region, group to group and Friend to Friend. More conservative groups of Quakers held strongly in regarding Christmas as a normal day, not more important than the rest and refused to participate in usual Christmas activities like setting up Christmas trees or gift-giving. However, more liberal groups were more tolerant of participation in such activities, as long as it didn’t interfere with the Quaker stance of simplicity (3). In Herbert Hoover’s childhood, it would not have been exceedingly rare to find a plain tree in a meetinghouse or for him to have been given a gift. In fact, Hoover indeed celebrated a more plain Christmas, as one of his most fondest memories according to him, were his Quaker aunt and uncle in West Branch took him and his cousins to chop down a pine tree and feast on sweets (6)

Now in the more modern age, the festivities of decorating Christmas trees and gift-giving have become more normalized among some Quaker delegations. Each meetinghouse has their own stances on it. Some are more open to the more family-oriented aspects, such as gift-giving and gathering with family, while others may prefer to do the usual and do hymns and carols at their meetinghouses. Each Quaker has their own belief and relationship with the holiday, acknowledging its importance in both faith and in society, yet also not necessarily having to engage with its much more commercialized aspects. What seems to be the most important for Quakers is to spend the day with friends and family, reflect and meditate and connect with the spiritual element of Christmas.

Works Cited

1. Ayoub, Raymond. 2006. “The Persecution of ‘an Innocent People’ in Seventeenth-Century England.” Quaker Studies 10 (1).
2. Carter, Michael . n.d. “The History of Christmas.” English Heritage. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/christmas/the-history-of-christmas/.
3. Discovering Quakers. 2024. “Exploring Quaker Experiences: Holy Days.” Discovering Quakers. December 16, 2024. https://www.discoveringquakers.org.uk/blog/exploring-quaker-experiences-holy-days.
4. Fox, George . (1901) 2025. The Journal of George Fox. Edited by Norman Penny. Vol. 01. United Kingdom: Friends’ Tract Association.
5. Glusac, Elaine. 2011. “How to Eat like a King for Christmas.” Smithsonian Magazine. December 22, 2011. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-to-eat-like-a-king-for-christmas-11475686/.
6. Herbert Hoover Presidential Museum and Library. 2025. “Christmas with the Hoovers | the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.” Archives.gov. 2025. https://hoover.archives.gov/christmas-hoovers.
7. Joel Cadbury, Henry. 1943. “Christmas—Every Day or Never?” Friends Intelligencer, 1943.
8. Justin Scott Kirkland. 2021. “COERCION on HOLY DAYS in the MIDDLE AGES.” The Journal of Law and Religion 36 (2): 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/jlr.2021.16.
9. King James VI and I. 1995. “Speech in Star Chamber of 20 June 1616.” Edited by Johann P Sommerville. Cambridge University Press, January, 204–28. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511809743.013.
10. Lancaster, James A. T. 2021. “The Sordid Underbelly of Christmas Past.” The Conversation. December 22, 2021. https://theconversation.com/the-sordid-underbelly-of-christmas-past-172873.
11. Quaker.org. 2023. “Do Quakers Celebrate Christmas & Easter? – Holiday Celebrations.” Quaker.org. May 25, 2023. https://quaker.org/christmas-and-easter/.
12. Religious Society of Friends in Britain. 2025. “Unity and Diversity | Quaker Faith & Practice.” Quaker.org.uk. 2025. https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/chapter/27/.
13. Walker, Harlan. (1990) 1901. Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery 1990. Oxford Symposium.
14. Willian Frost, Jerry. n.d. The Quaker Family in Colonial America; a Portrait of the Society of Friends. St. Martin’s Press.