Scottish Highland Christmas Traditions and Holiday food.

[The Q]

The Christmas tree was not really adopted until Prince Albert 1819-1861 introduced them to Queen Victoria's celebrations. Then only by the rich, the majority pre 1960s did not have a tree.

When I lived in the Hebrides 1970s and my mother held a Christmas party for the brownies, some parents would not allow their children to attend as it was a heathen celebration.

Christmas was often a normal working day only becoming just celebrated at the time of Dickens 1812-1870 and he was writing from the point of view of a wealthy man in the biggest city in the world. In the majority of Britain including Scotland the majority of people could not afford to "celebrate" Christmas until well into the 20th Century.
Christmas only became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958.

Traditionally little notice of Christmas was taken by the Church of Scotland and definately not by the Free Church of Scotland.

Your vision of Christmas is sadly post WW2 for most people (WW2 rationing finally ended 1954), even as a child in the 1960s a sock may contain an orange and a few sweets. Then I might receive one or two presents.

Father Christmas as seen today, is really fairly modern for most and would have had little place in a God fearing house ( the majority) back in the days you are referring to.

[CollinMacD]

The Christmas tree was not really adopted until Prince Albert 1819-1861 introduced them to Queen Victoria's celebrations. Then only by the rich, the majority pre 1960s did not have a tree.

When I lived in the Hebrides 1970s and my mother held a Christmas party for the brownies, some parents would not allow their children to attend as it was a heathen celebration.

Christmas was often a normal working day only becoming just celebrated at the time of Dickens 1812-1870 and he was writing from the point of view of a wealthy man in the biggest city in the world. In the majority of Britain including Scotland the majority of people could not afford to "celebrate" Christmas until well into the 20th Century.
Christmas only became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958.

Traditionally little notice of Christmas was taken by the Church of Scotland and definately not by the Free Church of Scotland.

Your vision of Christmas is sadly post WW2 for most people (WW2 rationing finally ended 1954), even as a child in the 1960s a sock may contain an orange and a few sweets. Then I might receive one or two presents.

Father Christmas as seen today, is really fairly modern for most and would have had little place in a God fearing house ( the majority) back in the days you are referring to.

A lot of great information, my Grandfather never caught on to a Christmas Tree, although when settled in the U.S. and his children were all born in the U.S. he did have trees for them. I hope you can read my paper that I posted. I think it has some great info from the perspective of Roman Catholic Scottish....Merry Christmas