The walk home from the church on Christmas Day, Scotland

Christmas Day in Australia. Turkey, ham, the plum pudding set alight then eaten with brandy butter. A tree decorated with tinsel and coloured lights and little wafts of cotton to look like snow. Carols about reindeers and sleigh rides through snow which lay all about. And then we go to the beach for a swim.

Naturally, after growing up with my head filled with images of a cold, snowy Christmas, I had to have one. And I finally got my chance when I moved to London for work. A friend invited me to spend Christmas with his family in Scotland. My ‘Yes’ was out almost before he finished speaking.

His family are from London but had rented a cottage near Pitlochry, a small town on the edge of the Highlands, and we were all travelling up there for a few days. Christmas is such a family time that I love the idea of going on holiday together, away from day to day life. The only problem with going somewhere cold is fitting all the winter clothes into a suitcase full of gifts.

‘Twas the night before Christmas…

I was working until Christmas Eve, so my friend and I booked a flight to Edinburgh and then a train to Pitlochry. From there, his parents would pick us up and drive us to the cottage. An excellent plan.

And then I discovered the phenomenon of Heathrow Airport at Christmas time. It seems everyone in England is on the move. And the weather is unpredictable: fogs, rain, perhaps even snow. I decided the key was to be prepared for the worst. So we caught the Heathrow Express rather than the London Underground – it’s more expensive but quicker and less likely than the Tube to suddenly face an unexplained, incomprehensible but catastrophic delay.

Security had long queues but we had time. The man ahead was turned back because the home printout of his online boarding pass was crooked; apparently he’d have to get it reprinted at check in because the boarding machines would be unable to read it. I looked at ours nervously but we were passed through okay. A valuable lesson: get a good clear printout.

A wee delay at Heathrow

Finally we were called to board. I could almost see the highlands of Scotland, hear those bagpipes. The weather was good. All would be fine. And then they made the announcement: our plane was delayed. But it was there, I could see it. Then I saw the thing you never want to see: men in overalls approaching the plane, spanners in hands. They climbed up and opened the tail, began tinkering. The windows of the boarding gate fogged up as we all crowded around to watch this nightmare unfold.

At the boarding desk, phones were ringing and staff were whispering. Another announcement came: they were working to fix a minor mechanical problem with the plane. The man put down the microphone and looked across the sea of horrified, frightened faces. Another hasty huddled conversation and he made a second announcement: the problem was to do with heating, the plane could fly fine without the problem being fixed but it would be less comfortable if they didn’t fix it. Strangers united as they exchanged glances reassuring each other that British Airways would not lie to us, not at Christmas.

But my friend and I had another problem. Our connection with the train was tight enough, this delay could mean we missed the last train of the day and would have to spend the night in Edinburgh. I don’t wear a watch and pulled out my phone to check the time so often that I ended up just clinging on to it.

Finally we were allowed to board. As we taxied out, the pilot cheerfully announced that snow had started to fall in Edinburgh but he didn’t foresee a problem with us landing.

The flight was short, uneventful, and actually quite cosy and warm thanks to those engineers and their spanners. But, naturally our arrival in Edinburgh was over half an hour late. We still had time though. And we’d prebooked out tickets to Pitlochry so we could just jump on the train at Edinburgh Waverley Station.

We tumbled in a cab and told him to drive like the wind. He drove fast on crowded, wet roads, chatting incomprehensibly the whole time. My ear had not yet adjusted to Scottish. Same words but oh so differently pronounced.

And the whole time precious minutes were ticking away. When he found out the time of our train, he got that famous dour Scottish look and shook his head: there was no way we could make that train. But he did have a solution; the train would stop at Haymarket Station in central Edinburgh about four minutes after it left Waverley – did we want him to take us there instead? Yes! Yes! So he did, and we ran down that platform with barely a glance at the looming beauty of famous Edinburgh Castle, home of military tattoos, or at the dark stone city, home of the Edinburgh Festival.

We jumped onto the train and sat to catch our breath and praise our (now absent) taxi driver. The train went almost immediately. Phew!

I seem to spend a lot of time running to and from planes to make connections. Travelling at busy times does tempt fate, but that’s half the fun… especially in hindsight.

The train trip was lovely. It takes just under two hours and you cross the engineering wonder of the Forth Bridge, opened in 1890 and 2.5 kilometres ( 1.5 miles) long. Once you’re across that you feel in Scotland proper – sorry, all those in Edinburgh but it just feels like a significant moment, crossing that bridge.

White Christmas in Scotland

And then it really begin to snow. Which was perfect.

By the time we got to Pitlochry, it was dark and cold and snowing quite hard. My friend’s family were waiting for us and whisked us off to the cottage, which was in the middle of a farm. They gave us hot mulled wine and Christmas had really begun.

Christmas Day and I woke up to an unfamiliarly bright world. I looked out the window and the snow truly lay thick and crisp and even. As far as the eye could see, the gently rolling hills were white. My first white Christmas! I was so happy.

Christmas lunch at Blair Castle

In a small town, and at Christmas, tradition takes over so it was agreed we would attend the Christmas morning church service in Pitlochry Church of Scotland. Most of us opted to walk there. It had stopped snowing, the sky was wonderfully blue and the idea of walking through the fresh snow was just too good. Naturally, we walkers ended up pushing the skidding car half way to the church anyway – snow tyres would have been good to find under the Christmas tree.

The church was crowded and had that wonderful community feel with people greeting each other as they found their seats. When it came time to take communion, I watched two young men assist an elderly man up the aisle. They were so caring and it was such a great vision of family across the generations that I admit I felt quite teary. Later that day I discovered that the elderly man was in fact John Profumo (famous for a political incident in the 1960s) and the boys were his grandchildren. In fact, they owned the cottage we were renting and we went up their house for Christmas drinks later in the day.

For Christmas lunch we drove to Blair Atholl, a neighbouring village, to Blair Castle, the ancient seat of the Dukes and Earls of Atholl. It’s now a hotel and function centre. And lunch was just like all those Christmases past in Australia: turkey and ham, Christmas crackers with bad jokes, plastic toys and paper hats. Except my mum’s plum pudding is better. Oh, and there was snow outside!

After lunch we headed back to the cottage and went for a long walk. We saw deer tracks, had a snowball fight and built a snowman. Perfect. Then it was back inside to defrost our fingers and toes, play with our Christmas presents, and drink more mulled wine to help digest our big lunch.

As I lay in bed that night, I finally understood all the Christmas carols and could make sense of the fake snow sprayed on windows in Australian shops. But best of all, I had seen the tracks in the snow left by Dasher and Dancer and Blitzen. There really is a Santa Claus.

-Philippa Burne

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