Scottish Holidays

Did you know Christmas was not a recognized holiday in Scotland until the 1960’s? Now of course if you came from Scotland you will know this, but some others might not. Today I want to write about Christmas and its Scottish Holiday equivalent.

It might come as a surprise to many, but if you are in Scotland on the days approaching Christmas, you will not see the streets filled with as many Santa’s, Christmas trees and tinsel as you would expect. This is because, as I said earlier, Christmas has not been a recognized Scottish Holiday for long at all. In fact Christmas has not been a Scottish Holiday for over 400 years.

Yule, as Christmas was then known, was a Scottish Holiday before the 16th century, but not in the sense we know it in today. Yule was a well known and active pagan holiday, to celebrate the turn of winter and the coming of warmer seasons, also known as Winter Solstice in many places. As Scotland lost its Pagan roots and Christianity became firmly imbedded in society, Christmas took a form similar to what we see today.

During the 15th century Scottish Church Reformations, Christmas was banned because of its close association with the Catholic Church.

Some readers might at this point be shocked to hear that the Scottish Holiday of Christmas was a normal working day for most people. Let me assure you that you need not worry; through out those 400 years there was a Scottish Holiday which was similar to Christmas in many ways.

This Scottish Holiday was called Hogmanay, and is celebrated on the 31st of December. In effect this Scottish Holiday is a combination of Christmas and New Years, as Hogmanay is both a time to give gifts (and I believe I know the perfect gift for coming holidays) and welcome in the New Year.

Even today Hogmanay is still a more important Scottish Holiday then Christmas. There are other Scottish Holidays traditions for that day, the most prominent of which is probably the chiming of midnight on bells across the country and singing of Robert Burns’s “Auld Lang Syne”. There are other traditions many of which involve the cleaning of one’s house to represent a new start and beginnings.