Christmas Day: Four very different ways to celebrate

Pyjamas or party gear? Food at lunchtime or dinnertime? Presents before or after breakfast? The running order of Christmas Day sparks debate far and wide.

We took a peek inside four Scottish households this festive season to see how their December 25 is likely to unfold.

The Reverend Hayley Cohen

Hayley Cohen is the minister of Northesk Parish Church in Musselburgh. Here is how Hayley, her husband Ross – who is an Episcopal priest – and their two-and-a-half-year-old son spend Christmas Day.

12.30am: The “clergy malt club” is a tradition amongst clergy who take a midnight service of having a dram when you get home afterwards, so Ross technically starts his Christmas Day very early with this before heading to bed.
6am: My son is always up at the crack of dawn so that won’t be any different – I hate to think how early he will be up once he understands the concept of Santa.
8am: Growing up, my mum would always make French toast, so I make that with layers of brioche, ham and cheese.
9am: After breakfast we get ready for our services – we don’t go to church together, we never have. We take turns taking our son with us.
10.30am: Both services start at 10.30am. My Christmas morning service is a bit shorter and more relaxed.
12pm: Once we are home, I take off my clergy collar, grab a leftover piece of French toast, get back into mum mode and start preparing Christmas dinner. My parents are with us from the US this year so Mum and I will cook.
1pm: While food is in the oven, we open presents. Ross’s dad worked in hotels so they always did presents in the afternoon, a tradition we keep.
4pm: Time for Christmas dinner. My family is from New Jersey and Ross is British so we merge cultures when it comes to food. We are doing a rib of beef – no turkey in our house – with stuffing, Yorkshire puddings, Mum’s cheesy mashed potatoes and sprouts.
5pm: We’ll look through the presents we got and play with or build some new toys with my son.
7.30pm: Bath and bedtime for our son.
8pm: Ross and I can switch off and have a glass of wine. When we decorated our tree growing up, we always listened to Jimmy Buffett’s Christmas Island album which is very niche, but that will probably go on at some point. We might watch White Christmas too.
9pm: We might play a short, easy board game – likely between myself, Ross and my mum. Dad will be sat with his feet up.
10pm: A relatively early night for us. Christmas Day won’t be too dissimilar to our usual Sundays.

Matt Kennedy

Matt Kennedy is playing Peter Pan in this year’s pantomime at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow. Christmas is one of his only days off this month.

9.30am: I’ll hopefully have a lie-in. This year is special because I haven’t had Christmas at home for three years. Last year I was in Mumbai on tour with Mamma Mia, then the year before I was in Oxford.
10am: We do presents first thing. I always put on a Christmas playlist, I’ll start with Step Into Christmas because that is my favourite.
10.30am: Mum will pop on some coffee and we’ll have breakfast, maybe croissants or a bacon roll. Then we’ll get started on the Bucks Fizz.
11am: I usually get some toiletries for Christmas so I’ll take a nice long shower and come out smelling amazing.
11.30am: We’ll watch whatever Christmas films are on.
1pm: We’ll head over to see my older sister Clare, her husband David and my niece, Nora. Nora is eight so she is the perfect age for Christmas.
1.30pm: We do presents with the whole family and Nora will be showing off everything she got from Santa. She recently saw Wicked so I think that might be a theme.
2.30pm: My brother-in-law cooks the Christmas dinner. I’ll probably offer to help, but end up topping up my glass.
5pm: David does a mean Sunday roast so I am expecting big things from dinner. There will be turkey and tons of veg. I don’t know the exact menu because it feels like so long since I had Christmas dinner at home. Last year in Mumbai we had two shows on Christmas Day. The hotel staff put on a dinner for us but it wasn’t the same.
7pm: Trivial Pursuit time. The teams are a little uneven as it’s Mum and Dad, Clare and David then me and Nora. Her general knowledge is better than mine.
8pm: There might be a return to what is left of the Christmas dinner. I’ll also try to get a photo of someone who has fallen asleep, most likely my dad. My schedule has been so busy that I’ve hardly seen my family, so I just want to spend time with them.
9pm: Gavin And Stacey Christmas Special.
10pm: Back to my mum and dad’s. I’ll probably have a dram then call it a night, ready to head back to the theatre for a two-show day on Boxing Day.

Kaori and Keith Simpson

Kaori and Keith Simpson run Harajuku Kitchen in Edinburgh. Kaori was born in Hong Kong to a Japanese family and spent part of her childhood in Manila, while Keith is from Portobello. Here is how the pair blend their Christmas traditions.

9am: Kaori is Buddhist so she makes sure to do her chanting and light incense first thing. We know Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, but we still want to feel spiritual and celebrate that side of the day. All cultures celebrate Yuletide time, but new year is a bigger deal for us.
10am: We don’t have children so it’s just us in the morning. We will probably start the day wrapping Christmas presents to take to family later – we are busy so do a lot last-minute.
11am: We have a brunch at home to keep us going, with our favourites like dressed crab, gravlax and nice cheeses. That will probably be enjoyed along with a port or sherry – we like that more than champagne.
12pm: Kaori lost her mum last December and she always had a yule log. We buy one from La Barantine and have a slice to remember her.
1pm: Over to my parents’ house for the afternoon to see nieces and nephews and open presents. We don’t come together often, so it’s special.
3pm: When Kaori’s family lived in the Philippines, their traditional Christmas dinner was meatloaf with pineapple on top and a boiled egg in the middle, her mum’s Japanese fluffy potatoes, miso soup and Japanese rice. Dessert would be strawberry shortcake. My family are traditional. It will be a big free-range chicken with all the trimmings – including bread sauce – and Christmas pudding with homemade brandy butter. Kaori will bring some of her traditions along; everyone loves her salmon nigiri as an appetiser. She always has to have Japanese rice too.
5pm: The best thing about Christmas is that all the Harajukus are closed, it is our only day off. We will be dropping surplus to a foodbank on the 23rd though, so we hope people in need will be sitting down to enjoy that on the 25th.
7pm: After all the day’s food, we will head out for a walk.
9pm: Our friends have The Wally Dug pub which is open on Christmas, so we will meet them there for a few drinks before calling it a night.

Ayeasha Coghill

Ayeasha Coghill will be working as a staff nurse at Highland Hospice on Christmas Day, helping patients make the most of what will likely be their last Christmas.

6.40am: I head out to work, leaving behind my husband – who works offshore and is home for Christmas for the first time in seven years – two stepsons and dog Lola.
7.30am: After arriving and getting changed, I’ll go through the nightshift reports to see how patients have been.
8am: We do medication rounds, hand out breakfast and do personal care. There will be at least five members of staff there and we’ll wear bauble earrings or funny hats for the day.
10am: Family and friends will start arriving to visit patients – some will also have gone home for a few hours. Each resident gets a gift from us, last year it was a nice fleecy blanket.
1pm: We do a three-course Christmas dinner for patients and any visitors in their rooms, which we try to make as festive as we can. We usually have a Baileys or prosecco on offer – while we are a clinical setting, we want to remember this will likely be a last Christmas for them.
2pm: The staff will have their Christmas dinner while the patients have a rest.
5pm: Patients have dinner, something light after the big meal during the day. We have “cuddle beds” which are beds friends and family can share with them to watch a movie afterwards.
8pm: My shift ends. I don’t begrudge working Christmas Day. This job has made me so much more thankful for things like just being able to go to work. People say they don’t know how I can do my job, but I can be there for someone in their last hours. I have found where I am meant to be in that.
8.45pm: I’ll get home and straight into my Christmas pyjamas. We’ll open some presents my family has held back.
9.30pm: We’ll have a festive tipple, I’ll go for a gin and tonic then maybe a homemade Baileys that one of the team at the hospice has made. The games might come out before bed – we have a couple of new ones I am excited to try.