THE observation of Christmas having been deemed a sacrilege, the exchange of gifts and greetings, dressing in fine clothings, feasting and similar satanical practices, are hereby FORBIDDEN, with the offender liable to a fine of five shillings.

I AM grateful to Heather Pattison of Darlington for sending me a yellowed newspaper cutting from a North-East newspaper that she found tucked away in a drawer. It is headlined “the 12 sins of Christmas”, and it outlines the strange laws that have been introduced over the centuries to curtail Christmas.

Henry VIII was the first, introducing the Unlawful Games Act of 1541. This was meant to encourage people to give up fashionable sports like tenys and concentrate on archery, which might be useful in battle. It specifically forbade all sport on Christmas Day except archery, although in later years leaping and vaulting were also allowed. This ban existed until 1960, so 20th Century Christmas Day football fixtures must have been illegal.

In 1541, Edward VI passed the Holy Days and Fasting Days Act which insisted that not only did everyone have to attend church on Christmas Day but they had to walk to the service – any vehicle parked near a church could be impounded and sold to benefit the poor. This Act was not repealed until 1969.

In 1588, Elizabeth I ordered that all of her subjects should have roast goose for Christmas dinner. This was because she had been dining on the bird when news came through that the Armada had been defeated and England's brave sailors had cooked the king of Spain’s goose.

Most anti-Christmas laws date from the 1640s and 1650s when Oliver Cromwell’s Puritans were in control. They hated Christmas because it was an immoral, debauched occasion, and because their Catholic enemies enjoyed it. Therefore, they cracked down on the “heathenish custom and abominable idolatry”. They issued almost annual decrees – like the 1647 Ordinance for the Abolition of Festivals – restricting a new element of Christmas that they had taken a dislike to: only three-course meals were allowed, shops and markets were forced to open, people attending church were driven away by armed guards or arrested. The Puritans may even have banned the consumption of mince pies.

Naturally, when the Commonwealth collapsed in 1660, one of the first items on the agenda of the restored king, Charles II, was the reintroduction of Christmas. All of the mince pie bans were repealed, and December 25, 1660, was the first proper Christmas for 17 years.

However, Puritans in other parts of the world still clung to the crackdown – the frightening “Publick Notice” at the top of this column was issued by the fiercely anti-fun Puritan settlers in Massachusetts Bay in 1660.

Since then Christmas has been largely unfettered – the 1831 Game Act prohibited the use of “any dog, gun, net, or other engine or instrument” to kill birds on Christmas Day and this wasn’t repealed until 1989.

This week, though, it has been announced that new legislation may be needed to control the number of drones buzzing about in our skies imperilling aircraft. If drones are that dangerous then we must be staring an aerial apocalypse in the face by allowing a fat bloke in a red suit to speed across the sky at 1,800 miles-per-second – perhaps we should legislate against him, and call it Elf and Safety.