A Christmas in Scotland with Carmen Caine

A Christmas in Scotland

After an exhausting 30-hour trip from Seattle to Edinburgh, a trip in which everything that could go wrong actually did, from tickets cancelled by the airline during check-in to British agents pulling my sixteen-year-old daughter aside in London’s Heathrow airport for attempting to carry a ‘weapon’—a forgotten leftover self-defence keychain from the clown craze—in her school book bag through security, we finally arrived in Edinburgh a good twelve hours or more behind schedule. We were tired, exhausted, hungry, and honestly, more than a wee bit crabby with each other—and then we learned that the Waverley Station car rental wasn’t at the airport but on the other side of Edinburgh.

By the time we’d gathered our luggage and found the tram platform, it was dark, windy, and raining, and after waiting what felt like a century in the cold, the tram finally arrived. A quick look at the map inside the tram revealed our travel luck still held. Waverley station was basically at the end of the line, all the way across town, a good twelve or so stops away. After another display of short tempers, we sat down and stared tiredly out of the windows as the tram began to crawl its merry way across the city at a pace I acidly wondered if a snail could beat.

But then, things began to change.

It started with warm toes and after wiping the rain away, clean glasses. There really is something special about Christmas. I think it’s the lights. No matter how tired you are, the little kid inside you gets excited when you see bright Christmas decorations, red plaid ribbons, glittering pine cones, and evergreen boughs twisted around shop railings, inside store windows, and on street lamps. The tram zoomed past stone buildings with coats of arms on plaques announcing they’d been established hundreds of years before, the bottom floors filled with quaint little stores that my daughter calls ‘Harry Potter Style Shops’—one complete with a man standing outside in a kilt with a live owl perched on his arm.

Instead of dozing off during the ride, we started feeling a bit more energized at each tram stop instead, and by the time we approached our destination, we were pointing at the twinkling city outside the tram windows and laughing, forgetting about the hassles of our trip.

And then we arrived. Waverley Station. A Waverley Station we’d been so irritated to hear about at the airport turned out to be the highlight of the day—if not the year. Honestly, we couldn’t have planned it better if we’d tried. That’s what I love about traveling, the totally unexpected, the bad and the good. We stepped off the tram at St. Andrew Square and walked back to Waverley Station, what we discovered to be the heart of Edinburgh’s Christmas festivities.

It’s funny how fast you can get stressed out, and how just as fast, you can forget it all. Waverly Station changed our moods in less than a minute. There in the shadow of the mighty Edinburgh castle I’ve written about so many times in my books, stood a real Christmas Market, a magical Christmas wonderland. An outside ice rink. Rides covered in bright lights including a Ferris Wheel, the Big Wheel they call it, and something named the Star Flyer that offers great city views for those who can brave such things. I can’t handle such heights anymore. Outside the perimeter of the place, we saw rows of tiny wood, decorated arts-and-crafts booths that looked like little houses, selling everything from Scottish plaids, leather journals, wine holders masquerading as mini knights in full suits of armor, and intricate silver, Celtic jewellery.

Christmas music blared. And the food? Lots. German sausages. Pretzels. Waffles. Burgers. Falafel. Nutella crepes. Hot toddies and Bailey’s hot chocolate. I saw a Santa’s workshop, everything made from cocoa-dusted milk chocolate, including the pliers, nuts, and bolts and the presents and sleigh.

We couldn’t see everything. It was too big. We had to pick up the car before the agency closed. But we did manage to sneak in the Christmas tree maze, hundreds of Christmas trees decorated with lights, a maze that held six secret letters you had to find to spell a Christmas word to collect a prize—a bag of chocolate coins. I can’t tell you how magical that was, again, when all you had to do was look up to see the great historical castle of Edinburgh looking down at you from above.

Finally, we left, knowing exactly where we would be going the next night—after all, I’d promised to write a Christmas blog post, something I hadn’t realized I’d been living through the past 30 hours until our happy ending—and picking up our car, we set off for the hotel.

Finding the hotel? Well, that was another adventure, driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road while trying to navigate the streets without a GPS. Yes, I come from a long, long line of thrifty Scots, and especially after having to rebuy our tickets at the airport at prices four times higher than three months ago, I had to save money where I could. Dubbing my sceptical daughter as the new family navigator, we set off through Edinburgh without a map, figuring we’d find a gas station along the way soon enough. We did. Eventually. About an hour later. I have no doubt if we hadn’t had our little magical Christmas break, we would not have been laughing but griping at each other the fourth time we drove past the ‘Tip Top Tresses’ beauty shop and crossed and re-crossed the Dean bridge—surely, they were wrong and Edinburgh had about twenty of those things instead of just the one! I swear, it was everywhere—while trying to find the gas station to buy a map, and then afterwards, find our elusive hotel.

A good three hours later, we arrived, strolling into the hotel with smiles on our faces and quite proud of having navigated the roughly three miles without technology. We sat down at the pub next door with a steaming bowl of pea and mint soup, fresh bread, and a baked potato. Following it up with a cup of hot tea, I got into a fun conversation with the waiter, a tall, charming Scotsman who gave me more story ideas in ten minutes than I’d drummed up by myself in Seattle all year.  I know what I’m writing about next already—that is, after I finish “Witch of Threadneedle Street”, “The Blacksmith”, and a novel code-named “The Governess” because I haven’t dreamt up a good title for it yet.

My daughter fell asleep at the table, but not before she told me she was wrong—something I don’t hear from her very often now that she’s ventured into the teen years. She’d been a bit sad leaving Seattle this time of year to join me on this Scottish research trip. Christmas is her favorite time of year, something we usually celebrate the entire month with little family traditions here and there. She’d thought she would miss all the holiday fun. “But I was so wrong,” she said, even as I began looking for my phone to get a permanent record of her statement. “This place is so Christmasy. Even though it’s a different country, I feel like I’m at home.”

Our waiter overheard and grinned and coming back to our table, he told her, “That’s because Christmas is another word for family.”

I know it sounds mushy, but you know what? He’s right. I’ve been to Scotland six times before, but I’ve never been here during Christmas. It’s special. I feel more at home than ever before, and I have nothing else left to say right now then “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” to all!