Christmas in Scotland

August 5
Though Scotland has few deeply established Christmas traditions, they do have many superstitions about the end of the year. Divination was once widespread during the holiday season with rituals centered around the family hearth. The luck to be found in the New Year is divined by reading the signs in the ashes after a Christmas Day fire. A foot shape facing the door foretells a death in the family, and a foot facing the room means a new arrival. Another custom is to carve an old woman from a piece of wood. She is named Cailleach, the Spirit of Winter. She is burned in a ritual symbolizing the end of bad luck and a fresh start for the New Year.

Hogmaney

April 25

Although Christmas and its customs were in disfavor for only a short time in England (during the reign of Cromwell), Scotland ignored the holiday far longer. To the Scots, "Christmas" is "Christ's Mass," and Mass was banned in Scotland. Charges were brought against people for keeping "Yule," as it was called in Scotland. This less-than-festive attitude lasted for 400 years. It has only been in recent years that the Scots observed December 25 as a special day at all. Until the 1960s, Christmas Day was a normal working day for most people in Scotland. Rather, they would save their sense of celebration for a week and celebrate "Hogmanay," a greeting of the New Year.