How interesting. Thank you. I would have thought that Scotland and England would have honored Christmas as a holiday much longer ago than 1950. I hope to find some traditions that may have had roots in Scotland and Ireland and carried over to the US. A few years ago I read of an area of Tennessee that carries on a tradition of greeting visitors with "Christmas preseent". For years I had heard my older brothers and sisters use that greeting; but when asked they, didn't know where it came from or why. On seeing that article it gave me a clue; my maternal grandmother's parents were from Tennessee.

To clarify I will attach all the correspondence below this as I had "replied" rather than "reply all." I did not say anything about England in my first reply. England and Scotland were until 1707 separate countries, and even after the parliamentary union of 1707 some matters like the law system the Church and education were kept separate. Of course, with the exception of the time of the Commonwealth, England has always celebrated Christmas in historical times - though many of the modern traditions in fact date from the 19th Century, and owe much to Dickens and Prince Albert To expand on my reply, after the Reformation (1560) Scotland did not keep Christmas, and therefore there was no body of tradition for the Scottish settlers to draw upon to produce their own Christmas traditions in Ireland. As Christmas is a religious festival the Scots Irish settlers would have followed their own tribal ideas and would not have imported any traditions of the natives. Some emigrant communities did keep Christmas, I believe that the Huguenots (French) had some Christmas activities as did the Moravians (German). Edward Andrews -----Original Message----- From: Loudene Tollar [mailto:ludiekt@juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 1:12 PM To: Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [Sc-Ir] SCOTCH-IRISH CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS How interesting. Thank you. I would have thought that Scotland and England would have honored Christmas as a holiday much longer ago than 1950. I hope to find some traditions that may have had roots in Scotland and Ireland and carried over to the US. A few years ago I read of an area of Tennessee that carries on a tradition of greeting visitors with "Christmas preseent". For years I had heard my older brothers and sisters use that greeting; but when asked they, didn't know where it came from or why. On seeing that article it gave me a clue; my maternal grandmother's parents were from Tennessee. [Edward Andrews] replied to the letter below From the Reformation Scotland did not keep Yule. It is only relatively recently that Irish Presbyterian Churches even noted Christmas (In Scotland it was into the late 1950s before Christmas was even a public holiday) There are lots of Irish Christmas traditions I believe, and St Stephen's Day and St John's Day are also important. The Scottish mid winter festival is Hogmanay, which is still very big in Scotland. One must also remember Burns Night which is also a kind of mid winter festival. Hope that this helps Edward Andrews -----Original Message----- From: Loudene Tollar [mailto:ludiekt@juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 7:23 AM To: Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [Sc-Ir] SCOTCH-IRISH CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS - HELP It's been several years since I've had time to even look at this list. I'm back now and looking for help. This subject has probably been addressed a long time ago but if anyone can give me a few Christmas traditions(briefly) that are know to have been celebrated by the Scotch-Irish I'd sure appreciate it. I'm working up a program for our genealogy society here in Trinity County, Texas for December and hope to include some traditions that may have been passed down through the generations. Thanks, Ludie