The Waverley Gazette

When Christmas was banned in Scotland, with a recipe for Yule Cake from The Glasgow Cookery Book

Hello everyone,

We ran this blog piece last December just before Christmas and it was so interesting, we are running it today. The Yule Cake is more of a bread, than a cake, but good with cheese, or just with a soup.

Christmas in Scotland had been a religious feasting day until the time of the Scottish Reformation in 1560, when Scotland split from the Catholic Church and new beliefs and practices came in to being.

Yule

In 1640, the Scottish Parliament passed a law that made celebrating ‘Yule vacations’ illegal. The Reformation abolished Christmas as the greatest festival of the Christian year. Even baking Yule bread was an offence. Christmas was frowned upon in Scotland for a long time, which is why Hogmanay and New Year celebrations in Scotland became important. 25 December didn’t become a Scottish public holiday until 1958.

Previously, Yule bread had been a tradition for hundreds of years across the British Isles, as Yule was a pagan tradition, and part of the 12 day festival in winter that began with the winter solstice. Yule festivities were observed and practiced in Germanic nations and northern Europe. The ancient Celtic practice of bringing in a living tree to the home to bless it. Bringing in misletoe was also a tradition to praise nature.