Scots Christmas traditions and words

It's Yuletide!

the snaa

Yule

Childermes

robin reidbreists

Whit did ye get for yer Christmas?

lichts

Santie Claus

Uphalyday

A bubbly-jock

moggans

a bödie o laalies

The starnie

The bairnie Jesus

Geegaws an baubles

Splore time!

Caunles

Waits

snawbaw

The shepherd an lammies

Daft days!

to

A bummock

Iceshogle

Hogmanay

Snawman

Yule E(v)en

A Blithe Yule

Boxing Day was celebrated in honour of Holy Innocents Day (the exact date of which could vary according to culture). This feast ceased to be celebrated after Scotland became Calvinist.

Having a party? Then it’s time to brew a bummock. It’s an old Scots word.

From as early as the Middle Ages, almost every town and city in the UK had a band of musicians and singers called waits. Their duties included waking the townspeople on dark winter days by playing in the streets.Waits were abolished in 1835, but the term became associated with any group of singers or musicians who sang and played carols around their town or village at night, over the Christmas period.

Bubbly-jock is an old Scots word for a male Turkey. Treasure Island author and famous Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, once wrote in a letter: “ At table I was exceedingly funny, and entertained the company with tales of geese and bubbly-jocks”.

This particular use of the word Christmas in Scots to mean a present came into fashion during the Victorian period when the feast became very commercialised with gifts, cards, trees and decorations.

The end of the Christmas season has long been known as ‘Uphalyday’ in the Scots language and is marked on 6 January. In English this is known as Epiphany. In English, ‘finish of the holiday’.