that religion should influence politics and social life. Certain holidays were outlawed when Puritans came to power. In 1647, Parliament outlawed the celebration of Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide. Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast". They also objected to Christmas because the festivities surrounding the holiday were seen as impious (English jails were usually filled with drunken revelers and brawlers). During the years that the Puritan ban on Christmas was in place, semi-clandestine religious services marking Christ's birth continued to be held, and people sang carols in secret. Following the restoration in 1660, when Puritan legislation was declared null and void, Christmas was again freely celebrated in England. Christmas was outlawed in Boston from 1659. The ban was revoked in 1681 by the English-appointed governor Edmund Andros, who also revoked a Puritan ban on festivities on Saturday nights. Nevertheless, it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region. Attempting to force religious and intellectual homogeneity on the whole community, civil and religious restrictions were most strictly applied by the Puritans of Massachusetts which saw various banishments applied to enforce conformity, including the branding iron, the whipping post, the bilboes and the hangman’s noose. Swearing and blasphemy was illegal. In 1636, Massachusetts made blasphemy—defined as "a cursing of God by atheism, or the like"—punishable by death. Puritans were opposed to Sunday sport or recreation because these distracted from religious observance of the Sabbath. In an attempt to offset the strictness of the Puritans, James I's Book of Sports (1618) permitted Christians to play football every Sunday afternoon after worship. When the Puritans established themselves in power football was among the sports that were banned: boys caught playing on Sunday could be prosecuted. Football was also used as a rebellious force: when Puritans outlawed Christmas in England in December 1647 the crowd brought out footballs as a symbol of festive misrule. Other forms of leisure and entertainment were completely forbidden on moral grounds. For example, Puritans were universally opposed to blood sports such as bearbaiting and cockfighting because they involved unnecessary injury to God's creatures. For similar reasons, they also opposed boxing. These sports were illegal in England during Puritan rule. While card playing by itself was generally considered acceptable, card playing and gambling were banned in England and