Valentine’s Day in Scotland will be rather different this year with many of us spending it at home with a takeaway or a homemade meal.
People across Scotland are getting ready for the celebration of love, with many heading to the shops this evening to purchase bouquets of roses and the all-important Valentine’s Day card.
Traditionally, a popular Scottish custom was for young unwed men and women to write their name on bits of paper, place them in a bonnet, or a hat, and wait for each person to draw one name out. if the name was read out three times, it meant a marriage would take place.
Scots also express their love by sending anonymous cards to someone they admire with a special message or poem inside.
Katy Everett, a student from Edinburgh, reminisced about receiving an anonymous card: “I was six years-old and I got an anonymous card through the post, I was so excited because as a six-year-old you never get any letters through the post.
“When I opened it, I straight away saw the big question mark at the bottom. I remember quizzing everyone in my primary class trying to find out who had sent me the card.
“I only ended up finding out when I was 18, so at least now I finally know who it was from,” Katy laughed.
READ MORE: Valentine's Day: Scotland's most romantic local walks
Sarah Hartless and her three flatmates are excited to celebrate tomorrow with plans to go all out for Galentines.
Sarah said: “We are trying to make the day as fun as possible to cheer us all up, we have love heart shaped cupcakes and heart shaped decorations already in our living room.
“I love the idea of sending anonymous cards, so we have each written one for a flatmate and are leaving it in the kitchen this evening to be opened tomorrow morning!”
For some, traditions for Valentine’s Day are more personal, with Lucy Jackson from St Andrew’s saying: “Our family tradition is that we always get a M&S meal deal, and my mum will buy me a little gift."
Emma Rafferty from Glasgow has a special Valentine’s Day tradition with her family: “Every year, when I am home for Valentine’s Day, we will have a Valentine’s Day themed dinner and that is our family tradition!”
While some old Scottish traditions may no longer be in fashion, new one’s are being made this year, as many of us are planning our day around staying indoors.
Connor McCausland from Aberdeen is planning a very special day for his girlfriend Louise: “In the morning my plan is to wake Louise up with some nice flowers and a few tiny gifts. For the main part of the day, I think we will go on a bit of a trek across Aberdeen, even though it’s freezing, the snow really is a lovely sight currently!
“After that we will probably come back for dinner! We will order a meal from our local restaurant as it helps to support struggling businesses out there.”
For Cornelia Klefelt, Valentine’s Day will be spent on a romantic video chat with her boyfriend Gustav.
“We are going to watch some TV shows together tomorrow over facetime and I have also sent him some flowers.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here