12 laws of Christmas – Yuletide cases and customs that shaped Scotland

Peter Ranscombe squeezes back into his Santa suit to explore some of the Scots law cases and Acts that have festive connections.

1) Burke’s Christmas trial

William Burke and William Hare are Edinburgh’s – and, arguably, Scotland’s – most notorious killers, murdering 16 people and selling their bodies to anatomy teacher Robert Knox. Lord Advocate Sir William Rae didn’t have enough evidence to convict both, and so convinced Hare and his wife, Margaret, to turn King’s evidence against Burke and his lover, Helen McDougal. Burke and McDougal went on trial on Christmas Eve, 1828; on Christmas morning, Burke was found guilty and McDougal not proven.

2) ‘And cancel Christmas’

Centuries before Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham “cancelled” Christmas in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves at the flicks, the fledgling Calvinist Church of Scotland was already on the case. The Kirk’s General Assembly abolished “all days that hereto have been kept holy except the Sabbath day, such as Yule day, saints’ days and such others” in 1575. But, as National Records of Scotland charts, progress was slow, and Acts of Parliament were needed in 1640 and 1690 to enforce the ban.

3) ‘We didn’t see a bauble ’til 1958’

Although many provisions of the previous Acts were repealed in 1686 and 1712, Christmas Day wasn’t recognised as an official public holiday in Scotland until 1958 – as noted by Martyn Day, at the time MP for Linlithgow and East Falkirk, during a debate in the House of Commons in 2018. In the meantime, Hogmanay had emerged as the de facto national holiday.

4) Two days to recover from Hogmanay

A more official status for Christmas Day finally came with the passing of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, which introduced a statutory bank holiday in Scotland, presumably much to the delight of bank tellers around the nation, who could stop counting all those green paper one-pound notes for a day. The Act also listed New Year’s Day and 2 January, giving us that magical two-day holiday to recount Hogmanay’s excesses.

5) No Christmas Day trading, but New Year campaigning

In 2007, the Scottish Parliament passed the Christmas Day and New Year’s Day Trading Act, which stops most large shops from opening on Christmas Day and gives Scottish ministers the powers to introduce a similar ban on New Year’s Day, if they see fit. Trade unions are continuing to campaign for those provisions of the Act to be applied, so that shop workers can enjoy a break after Hogmanay.

6) Leaving school at 16

While the Christmas holidays are special for all school pupils, they’re extra special for those turning 16 because they’re able to leave school at Christmas. As Young Scot reminds us: “If you are 16 between 1 March and 30 September you can leave after 31 May of that year and if you are 16 between 1 October and the last day of February you can leave at the start of the Christmas holidays in that school year.”

7) Queen’s speech stooshie

The late Queen’s Christmas message from New Zealand caused a kerfuffle in 1953 when she described herself as “the Queen of England”, the phrase most beloved of American tourists. Her faux pas prompted at least one Scot to refuse to pay his income tax, which resulted in Inland Revenue v Mackintosh coming before Edinburgh Sheriff Court in 1954, as advocate David Walker noted the following year in The Modern Law Review.

8) Journalists were all atwitter

Politician Tommy Sheridan’s 12-week trial – the longest perjury case in Scotland – ended two days before Christmas in 2010. Yet the case is also likely to go down in Scottish legal history because trial judge Lord Bracadale allowed journalists to live tweet for the first time from the sentencing hearing at the High Court in Glasgow. In an age when Twitter has morphed into X and the Criminal Appeal Court is livestreaming, those first courtroom tweets perhaps now seem a wee bit quaint.

(9) Baublefest: the next generation

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without Baublefest, the annual fundraising campaign from the Lawscot Foundation, which aims to support ‘future legal stars from less advantaged backgrounds’. Donors can buy a bauble for the Baublefest tree in the Law Society of Scotland’s Edinburgh office. Ally Thomson, chair of the Lawscot Foundation’s fundraising committee, said: “This year, as well as looking for individual one-off donations, we are also inviting firms to donate a recommended monthly amount of £100 for one year.”

10) Putting Santa on trial

Baublefest isn’t the only festive fundraising that goes on in Scotland – on 17 December, the Faculty of Advocates will hold its International Christmas Court in the Laigh Hall at Parliament House, when Santa will be put on trial, accused of breaching the ‘ECHR’: the Elf Convention for Home Reconnaissance Act. The trial will raise money for the Lauren Currie Twilight Foundation and the Lawscot Foundation. Previous trials have included last year’s ‘The Elvish Advocate v Santa Claus’ and 2023’s ‘Jack Frost KC v Santa Claus’, organised by the Junior Bar Association.

11) When the lights go out

Christmas isn’t just about mock trials though – there are still proper cases occupying the courts too. For example, wind the clock back to 1999, when David Rowlands’ neighbours in Irvine convinced the courts to restrict his massive Christmas lights display to afternoons only. The following year, Sheriff David Smith handed down a complete ban, following a hearing at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court, which also included instructions not to play Christmas music outside his home.

12) Ghosts of Christmas past

If there’s nothing good on the gogglebox over Christmas – or if Stranger Things isn’t ‘your thang’ on one of those new-fangled streaming services – then gather round the wireless and revisit some of Scottish legal journalist John Forsyth’s classic radio programmes, including ‘Christmas Eve in the Courthouse’, broadcast originally on BBC Radio 4 in 2018, and ‘Lawful Business Christmas Cabaret’ from 1997, presented by solicitor and broadcaster Austin Lafferty.