During the ban, bakers were required to give the authorities the name of anyone requesting this holiday staple. A loaf of unleavened bread is baked for each individual in the family, and the person who finds a trinket in his or her loaf will have good luck all year. Divination was once a popular custom. On Christmas Eve, a single person cracked an egg into a cup.
The shape of the egg white determined the profession of the possible mate. The egg was mixed into a cake, and if the cake cracked during baking, the person would have bad luck in the next year. Sweeping fireplace ashes and reading them as a fortune teller would read tea leaves was also common. Many Scots still burn a twig of the rowen tree at Christmas as a way to clear away bad feelings of jealousy or mistrust between family members, friends, or neighbors.
The first visitor to a home on Christmas Day was called the First Footer. The person must bear gifts of peat, money, and bread to symbolize warmth, wealth, and lack of want. This later became a New Year's Day tradition, however.
Placing candles in the window to welcome a stranger is a long-upheld Scottish Christmas tradition. By honoring the visit of a stranger in the night, you honor the Holy Family, who searched for shelter the night of Christ's birth. Once the ban on Christmas was lifted, the Scottish adapted many of the Christmas traditions used in England and the U. Today, the Scots celebrate with festive Christmas trees and presents for all.
The traditional meal usually begins with cock-a-leekie soup. Roasted turkey has become the traditional main course, but glazed ham and leg of lamb, among others, are also common.
Side dishes may include black pudding, Yule bread, and soda bread. Clootie packs in the raisins, cinnamon, spices and apples, but is boiled in a cloot cloth. Black bun — more of a New Year tradition and a must-bring for the first footer, black bun sometimes appears on a Christmas dinner table too. The rich, dark fruit cake comes wrapped in pastry and served in slices, perhaps the ultimate winter comfort food.
Scottish cheeseboard — to tip you right over the edge, a board packed with some of the best cheeses in the UK. All served with Bannock oat cakes. Although Scotland may not always be blanketed in white at Christmas, a real nip in the air is a given. The Yule log tradition dates back to Viking times in the 8 th century.
Those sitting round the fire while the Yule log burnt would enjoy prosperity and protection for the coming year. A piece of wood carved to represent the Cailleach would be tossed on the fire on Christmas Eve as a symbol of the destruction of winter. Another way of keeping unwelcome visitors at bay is to keep the fire burning all night on Christmas Eve. To help clear the air among real people, a common tradition involves burning a branch of rowan tree to chase away bad feelings among friends and family, and to start the New Year with a clean slate.
Fire is used to welcome people too. Scottish homes traditionally keep a candle burning in their window during Christmas to welcome strangers. As well as in the home hearth, Scottish Christmas fires burn brightly outdoors too. Several big fiery celebrations take place throughout the year during Christmas and January.
They include:. One of the most unnatural and shocking truths about the Scotland Christmas celebrations is that there haven't been any for a long time. Christmas celebration was banned in Scotland for almost years. Oliver Cromwell, who ruled United Kingdom till AD, passed the ban on Christmas in which lasted for almost 15 years.
Although the ban was lifted in England with the fall of Cromwell, Scotland continued with it. The Presbyterian Church in Scotland discouraged Christmas holiday and celebrations and people who went against it suffered severe punishments; this trend continued for years.
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