In Chapter 21 of The Scarlet Letter, what are the Puritan values as exemplified by their celebrations?Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

While the lengthy discussion which Hawthorne which injects
into Chapter XXI of The Scarlet Letter may appear to be an
irrelevant digression from the narrative, it attests to the author's knowledge both of
the Puritans' history and his attitude toward their society. For instance, there is
clearly pointed satire in Hawthorne's remark,

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Into this festal season of the year—as it
already was, and continued to be during the greater part of two centuries—the Puritans
compressed whatever mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity;
thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday,
they appeared scarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general
affliction. 

The instillation
of the new governor, which allows for a "holiday," is nothing like those celebrated in
the "merry old England" from whence the Puritans have come. For, this day differs only
from other days in the lives of those who "wore the blackest shade of Puritanism" with
the exception of stopping work by in

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relaxing the severe and close application to
their various modes of rugged industry, which, at all other
times, seemed of the same piece and material with their
religion.

That
this is the only digression from the quotidian is also evinced with the usual position
of Hester in the community.  For, she is yet isolated from the
others:

As
was usually the case wherever Hester stood, a small vacant area—a sort of magic
circle—had formed itself about her, into which, though the people were elbowing one
another at a little distance, none ventured, or felt disposed to
intrude.

As Hawthorne
mentions, work and religion are the staples of Puritanism with no deviation.  Gone,
writes Hawthorne, are ancestral vestiges of the theatrical and celebratory England of
Queen Elizabeth or even that of King James.  Pointing to the hypocrisy of this grim
civilization is the fact that the sailors, who "transgressed without fear or scruple the
rules of behaviour that were binding on all others," are able to revel in the day and
smiled at by the Puritans "not benignantly at the clamor and rude deportment of these
jolly seafaring men."