Quote Originally Posted by Peter Crowe View Post
You are quite right David, Christmas only became a public holiday in Scotland in 1957 (which it hadn't been at least since the Scottish Reformation in 1560 or shortly thereafter). When my grandmother was a child in Macduff in the 1910's and 20's Santa Claus left gifts at the New Year.
Certainly not wishing to dispute the fact about 1957 but, I was working in the North East of Scotland in 1961 in a relatively large firm and Christmas was certainly worked by everybody in the firm except for one worker, an English man and it appears that he always took Christmas off. At that time in this area Hogmanay and New Year's Day was the day of celebration. In my family Christmas was not Celebrated until some time in the 1960's and started off as a watered down version of Hogmanay. Of course, Scotland being quite diverse I accept in other areas and within individual families Christmas could have been celebrated much earlier than this.