By 1641, Oliver had made some new somber friends. They also hated having fun, and liked to flap their gums in Parliament. And when this group of grumpy people looked around, they decided everyone else was having far too much fun.
So the group of solemn friends -- let's call them Puritans -- became an army. The New Model Army, to be precise. Under Oliver's guidance, this Puritan band managed to defeat the King's army and cut off his head. They dissolved the King's Parliament and tried to establish some of their own. These included The Rump Parliament, The Derriere Parliament, The Roast Beef Parliament, The Slightly-Silly Parliament, and The Oh-Let's-Just-Forget-It Parliament. With the failure of all of these, and nobody left to run the country, Oliver proclaimed himself Lord Protector of the Realm. He backed this up with lots of pointy swords and a few cannons.
But Oliver, behing so unhappy and unpleasant, was not a very jolly ruler. He shut down the theaters. He stopped all forms of merriment. He even banned Christmas carols and Christmas puddings. People were only allowed to read the Bible and occasionally indulge in a little penitent flagellation. In fact, Oliver was so unpleasant, that he even beat the crap out of a lot of Irishmen in his free time.
Eventually, Oliver died. His Puritan friends were very sad, but everyone else rejoiced. In fact, Everyone was so tired of the Puritans they couldn't stand it. So, Everyone gave the Puritans a boat and bid them a fond "See you in hell!"
Luckily for the Puritans, they had some Separatist family members to crash in on. You see, some years earlier (about 1621) a lot of their Puritan cousins, and maybe a weird uncle or two, got on a big boat called The Mayflower and left England because it was so full of vice and sin. After much sea-sickness and the occasional outbreak of scurvy, the Puritans (both generations of them) arrived in the new American colonies. Here, they were free to practice their strict faith, while raping and pillaging the land of the Natives.
Yes, despite the offered olive branch...er...peace pipe...Bong of Friendship... the Puritans just used the Native Americans and then dropped them like a two-penny whore. As it turned out, this was just the beginning of the many lies and deceitful actions which the American Government was going to apportion the Natives.
And this is why we kill massive numbers of turkeys (even though we don't really like them as much as chickens or cows) indulge ourselves in an orgy of gorging (which the Puritans would have pistol-whipped us for) and watch big rubber balloons being carried through the streets of New York each Thanksgiving.
Actually, it's a pretty lame excuse for a holiday. Basically, it's just the pre-game show for the main event:
Yes, we are all willing to observe the birth of Jesus Christ, just not any of the laws He set down. As one of our Nation's fathers, Ben Franklin, once said, "'Tis easier to keep holidays than Commandments." And let's forget about everyone else and their religious holidays. Clearly tolerance is not part of the foundation of our country. Please see above.
