Christmas cards were very popular during the First World War, perhaps bringing a sense of normality during a time of year when family would be most missed by those at the front. Edith Mercy Walter received letters from…
Photograph of the ‘Long Walk, St Andrews’ in snow in 1913. This image is from the papers of the Botany Department of the University of St Andrews which used to be based at the Bute building. The collection includes…
Illustration of a reindeer from one the engraved plates in Johannes Schefferus’ Lapponia, a history of Northern Scandinavia and the Sami people. A noted Swedish humanist, Johannes Schefferus’ account of Northern…
Photograph by local press photographer George Cowie of a young girl making a snowman, dated between 1925-1935 (GMC-EC-30-a). Making snowmen is a popular winter activity, which can be traced back to the medieval period…
Colour illustration of a Christmas tree from The Gift Book for all Seasons: A book of Instruction and Amusement for All Young People, 1860 (rper AP4.G5B6). While there has been a long tradition of decorating homes with…
Illustration of Father Christmas “Up-to-Date” by the illustrator Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914), published in the magazine Punch, or the London Charivari, 26 December 1896 (per AP101.P8 Volume CXI). Tenniel was a…
The Scottish folklorist Alexander Carmichael edited the songs, lore and poems of the Gaelic speaking regions of Scotland in the work Carmina Gadelica, 1900 (r PB1631.C2). Carmichael records that ‘Christmas chants’ were…
Photograph of the beginning of a curling match between the Silver Foxes Curling Club, East Lothian and the Dundee Curling Club dated between 1925-1935, possibly at the Law Mill curling pond, Dundee (GMC-EC-6-A). This…
Title page and frontispiece from A Christmas Carol in prose by Charles Dickens, c.1885 (s PR4557.C5). A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, to give the work its full title, was the first, and…
Illustration of the robin or robin redbreast (Erithacus rubecula) from the hand-coloured engraved plates of Prideaux John Selby’s Illustrations of British ornithology, published in 1841 (rfx QL690.S3 Volume 1). Selby…