St Andrews Day vs Burns night vs Hogmanay – Which Scottish holiday to celebrate?
The 30th of November is a key date in the Scottish calendar, which is often overlooked and, in my opinion, most definitely under celebrated. St Andrews is patron saint of Scotland, Russia, Poland, Romania and Greece! – But he doesn’t have the fraction of St Patrick’s power!
We all know about Irelands St Patrick’s day and it is celebrated all around the world – much due to the fact of Guinness’s wide distribution and advertising spend budgets! So what can we do about this? How can St Andrew not look so dull and sleepy next to his vibrant ginger hared, pipe smoking and jovial leprechaun?
Which Scottish holiday do you celebrate? Hogmanay, Burns night or St Andrews day.
Firstly we need to plan the drink, the activity and then the food… The challenge? How do we make it different from Burns Night – the patron saint of Haggis…?
I have been asking my Romanian friends and it seems that they combine the celebration with a national day on the 1st December and give people the day off! So step one clearly needs to be the Scottish Government declaring a holiday… Oh wait; they did in 2006 – as a bank holiday. Maybe they need to upgrade that to a full national holiday, get some brands involved and tell us what to do and how to celebrate?
How would we choose to create a new national holiday in this digital age? Would we need to create the appropriate hashtag, photo op, sharable content and (15 second) video opportunity?
Maybe this is it…?
We need a talent show competition with a dance off that climaxes in a huge compulsory public vote – where you don’t get the day off unless you say whom you want to win… a massive public and TV event where the country’s leader crowns the winner…? Am I going up the wrong tree here? Or is that a bit far fetched?
Which Scottish holiday to celebrate? I am already just exhausted just at the thought of it … I’m sticking to Burns Night on the 25th Jan with Robert Burns poetry, haggis, tradition, a fixed icon and a healthy dose of Whisky.
And for all our worldwide readers… Its: Rabbie Burns not Robbie Burns. You can read more useful facts about Rabbie Burns supper and tips on celebrating Burn night in “How to celebrate Burns night: A modern and informal guide to celebrating Scotland’s most famous poet, Robert Burns”. Order the paperback guide from here.
Download free digital version this week only, ending Friday 4th of December – http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00S30TP4Q
