Once unlawful, Christmas now fully celebrated at Norwich inn
(AP) — Had the hundreds of people who crowded into the Leffingwell House Museum Sunday to drink cider and eat gingerbread cookies been doing so in the 18th century, they would have been breaking the law.
[...] anyone celebrating Christmas in many parts of New England could have been fined five shillings following a ban on the holiday in the strictly Calvinist Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies in 1659.
In a room decorated with memorabilia commemorating George Washington — who once visited the inn — a few decorations sat by the window.
In the parlor, Mohegan storyteller Sister Bette-Jean Coderre was telling tales of eagles, mice and cats, and a fable about the partnership between stories and the truth.