Christmas in Scotland

(c) 2008 Grant Maloy Smith

Even though I have never been to Scotland, nor any closer to it than Reno, Nevada, all the same, most of my ancestry is Scot, with family names such as Grant, Colwell, McIntyre, and even a few Campbells thrown in just to round out the stew.

Therefore, despite my blinkard ignorance of all things Scottish, as an American, I feel entitled to describe the Christmas traditions of my forebears’ country. So despite the fact that nearly everything you are about to read will be completely incorrect except by the wildest accident of prose, I hope you enjoy and learn something!

Let’s start with shopping around Christmas time. There is a special tradition in meat markets all across the land when the butchers bring out their best polecats and hang them from gaily coloured ribbons from their biggest front window. The polecats are not entirely dead at first, which provides hours of entertainment for the wee ones, who name each one and laugh deliriously at their upside-down plight. 

According to tradition, the worst butcher in town has to keep a polecat under his kilt for three days and nights. Afterwards, this unfortunate chap is called upon to lead the Christmas choir with his new-found tenor, hitting notes so high that even Michael Jackson couldn’t hear them.

Other proprietors decorate their shops with haggis, which is draped luxuriously over signs and doorways. The intoxicating smell of sheep intestines puts everyone in a fine spirit, and ensure that drinking will start early and run extraordinarily late.

Large and small towns alike decorate their trees with multicolored lights, which are powered entirely by sheep just outside of town, who are yoked to a rotating arm which in turn charges a huge wet cell battery. After days of walking round and round, sheep have been known to spontaneously catch fire, or even go straight to explosion, which can be heard for miles around, adding to the festive spirit. The sheep are therefore sheared just before they are put to work this way, to protect the townspeople from errant wool.

Interestingly, instead of the traditional evergreen and fir trees preferred by most countries for Christmas trees, the Scots gather around an enormous pear tree stuck in the center of the biggest roundabout in town, which they decorate further with wanted posters from Scotland Yard. The most foul criminal bastard in all the British Isles gets the top spot on the tree. On Christmas eve the townsfolk grab all the pears they can reach and start pelting the pictures of the criminals. As the pictures are knocked down, the little ones stomp the crap out of them, until the entire centre of the roundabout is glazed with pear meat, pear skins, and shredded photos.

In the days leading to Christmas, the children of Scotland give up school completely and spend all their days and nights writing exorbitantly long manifestos to Santa. These are not the simple lists of toys requested by American kids, but rather, implore the old elf to swoop down from Lapland and cast complex spells in order to correct all manner of grievances. These include bewitching an unpopular clan, solving the international debt crisis, and increasing global warming because it’s so damned cold in the highlands.

Many children count down the twelve days leading up to the big event with a special Scottish advent calendar. Each day they open another door, revealing a miniature object inside. Some are precious - like a wee lamb, or a Christmas decoration, or a small pint of beer. But one door is booby-trapped by the parents to have a small explosive inside. What makes it so much fun is that no one knows which door it will be! So each day is full of excitement and wonder. The sensible children use a long stick such as a broom handle to pry open the doors each day, lest they lose a finger or an eye. But the less sensible ones are rushed to the emergency ward in a gaily decorated Christmas ambulance, which blares the Rudolph song in lieu of a siren as it makes its way through the holiday traffic.

Christmas eve finds the surviving children nearly apoplectic with glee and excitement, as the hour approaches. They clutch their manifestoes and read them aloud to each other with their cute little accents, while dad and mum climb on the roof and stuff wads of old clothing into the chimney. Finally the house fills up with smoke and the children either flee into the snow or pass out. Then it’s magic time, as the parents climb or fall down from the roof and go inside to have a nip, and tuck the remaining tots into their beds.

As the children sleep, mum and dad fill their stockings with little treats and then put the stockings back onto their feet.

Sometime in the night Santa comes of course, and unblocks the chimneys. Normally the family have left a plate of cookies and a wee dram of whiskey for Santa, who gobbles it up and leaves an assortment of gifts for the popular and sensible children. The disobedient ones have to wear the smoky old clothes from the chimney for the rest of the year, or until they wise up.

Christmas Day is a special feast for all, as kilted lads and gents trot down from the highlands and form an enormous conga line stretching from Edinburgh to Macbeth or Macintosh or someplace like that. It’s a long way, I guess. Occasionally a dancer slips on some exploded sheep residue, and the ladies point and laugh at his exposed frank and beans.

Speaking of which, that is the meal of the day, as the Scots sing and cavort their way from house to house, enjoying the stuff and drinking enormous quantities of whiskey and port.

Nearly everyone collapses for a few hours in the afternoon, then wakes up to make paper crowns and put them on each others’ heads as they string Swedish fish onto nylon fishing lines, then decorate the Christmas pear tree with them.

The day after Christmas is boxing day, where the most aggressive Scots line up to beat the snot out of each other in the town square.

Six days later is New Years Day, otherwise known as Hogmanay in Scotland. This is due to the fact that a great number of hogs are paraded through towns dressed in women’s clothing. The pigs don’t like it, either. But the children laugh and enjoy the spectacle, knowing that they will be up until at least midnight trying to scrub the lipstick off the filthy creatures.

Just before midnight, everyone runs to their neighbor’s house for some mixed nuts and wine or Scotch. But it ends in disaster because no one is home at any house, because everyone tries to visit someone else. Between houses they grab a stone for good luck, and throw it through someone else’s window. This small stone represents a lump of coal which means both good luck and, as it happens, being an asshole. Finally they return home disconsolate, and play with their own nuts in embarrassed silence.

When midnight strikes, a rooster is squeezed until he crows loudly enough for the whole town to hear, and bells are also rung on the television for all to enjoy. Everyone sings Auld Lang Syne, although no one actually knows why nor enjoys it very much.

At ten minutes past 12 am, anyone living within 500 yards of the southern border fires a shotgun toward England and yells profanities that thankfully no one can understand.

So you see that the ways in which we Americans celebrate Christmas and New Years are not so different from the way my distant relatives do it in Scotland. Truly, we are blessed to be so similar in so many ways.

Respectfully yours
Grant Maloy Smith
Technically Scottish, but
really just a blinkard American