ARA Scotland

Saturday is #ScottishArchivesDay. We're not hosting an event this year, but we're still encouraging archives everywhere to share Scottish related items. Tag us and we'll repost your content to help spread the word!

Historic Environment Scotland are hosting 4 free online events all about 'Making the Case for Archives and Libraries'. Each running on Monday lunchtime from 19th Jan to 9th Feb, and lasting an hour.

Click the link below for more info and to book via Eventbrite:
www.eventbrite.com/cc/making-th...

Thank you to everyone who took part in #ArchiveAdventCalendar. We wish all of our followers a #MerryChristmas and here's to a fabulous and fun 2026. See you all next year!

One more sleep to go. Time to get ready for #Santa to visit. #ArchiveAdventCalendar

Is that sleigh bells I can hear? Is that snow glistening? That must mean that we are walking in a #WinterWonderland #ArchiveAdventCalendar

Now, be honest. Have you been #NaughtyorNice this year? #ArchiveAdventCalendar

What #FestiveTraditions do you have at your Archive?

#ArchiveAdventCalendar

It’s mighty chilly outside. Best stay inside beside the #WarmFire! #ArchiveAdventCalendar

Let’s celebrate and let our hair down at the #ArchiveAdventCalendar #ChristmasParty

Tell us what your hard working #ArchiveElves have been up to recently #ArchiveAdventCalendar

Newspaper clipping from 1929

Description of hospital visit and thoughts in 1952

Today’s #ArchiveAdventCalendar @arascot.bsky.social

#Decorations

Decs ➡️Cardiff City Mental Hospital & Whitchurch Hospital
1st ➡️ clippings book @glamarchives.bsky.social
Dr P K McCowan’s 1st 🎅🏻 as Medical Superintendent. The hall sounds beautifully decorated, be amazing to see 📷 get in touch ✍🏻

#ArchiveAdventCalendar theme 15 is #WrappingPaper. If someone made wrapping paper featuring Dunblane’s historic Leighton Library, do you think this is what it would look like?

🚶Dunblane's historic Leighton Library is now closed for the winter, except for opening by special arrangement for groups

#ArchiveAdventCalendar theme 15 is #WrappingPaper. Don’t you think this Dunblane Museum wrapping paper design looks cute?

🚶Visit Dunblane Museum on Saturdays until 20 Dec
🕥 10.30am-4.30pm (last entry 4pm)
🆓 Free admission - donations invited

Child Hollywood star Jane Withers delivers a beautifully wrapped pile of presents. With only 10 DAYS until #Christmas it's deffo time to get the #wrappingpaper out. Film Star Scrapbooks c 1930-1945 for @arascot.bsky.social's #ArchiveAdventCalendar #filmhistory #filmarchives @librarydmu.bsky.social

A sheet of wrapping paper, or box wrapper, for the Edinburgh bakers D.S. Crawford and designed by Robert Burns who also produced other publicity and packaging material of the company. It is dated 1924 and was printed by McLagan and Cumming of Edinburgh and appeared in a trade publicity annual for 1925. An offset repeat of bluebirds fly over a background grid of red stylised flowers with green leaves.

@arascot.bsky.social I would not have minded a present wrapped in this. A sheet of #WrappingPaper for the old Edinburgh bakers D.S. Crawford & designed for them, like much of their publicity material, by Robert Burns in 1924. It would have been used in their shops & tearooms. #ArchiveAdventCalendar

A recruitment poster for the 9th (Cyclist) Battalion, as they were established for General Service for the First World War. Before it entered our collection it was used as a means of packing up a picture! 🎁🖼️

#ArchiveAdventCalendar #WrappingPaper #hampshirehistory #visitwinchester #visithampshire

Staff smiling for the camera as they prepare products for sale at the fish stall at Walthamstow market, c1960s. Behind the stall there are two men and two women, all wearing white overalls. A third woman, perhaps a customer, stands on the left side. Photo from VHM collection, available in our Searchroom.

Paper bags for sales at the fish stall at Walthamstow market, c1960s. #ArchiveAdventCalendar #WrappingPaper @arascot.bsky.social

A page in an open scrap book with cuttings of colourful wrapping paper

Need inspiration for your gift wrapping? Here are some #WrappingPaper samples from a Shaw-cum-Donnington Women's Institute scrap book dated 1965. #ArchiveAdventCalendar

Vintage Christmas wrapping paper with red and white labels reading “Christmas Greetings” and “Barnsley British Co-Operative Society Ltd.”, decorated with green holly leaves, berries, and red ribbons on a white background.

A black-and-white photo of a large corner building housing "The Barnsley British Co-operative Society" with a clock tower, shop window displays, and vintage cars parked outside on empty streets.

#ArchiveAdventCalendar Who remembers this co-op #WrappingPaper and going to see Father Christmas at the grotto? 🎅

A colourful photograph of various different sheets of marbled paper.

We may be biased, but we do think marbled paper makes the most beautiful #WrappingPaper there is 😍

#ArchiveAdventCalendar

Santa at Mearnskirk Hospital 1955

@arascot.bsky.social For #Day15 of #ArchiveAdventCalendar with @arascot.bsky.social we really scratched our heads with this one. Until we remembered the box of photos of Mearnskirk Hospital at Christmas in 1955! #WrappingPaper! 🎄 🎅 🎁

The #britishmuseum #archives has a lot of hand printed and embossed paper, often used to wrap archival documents and papers. These are particularly lovely examples, from Lady Banks’s Dairy Book of Oriental China from the early 19th C. #archiveadventcalendar #wrappingpaper

We may not have any colourful #Christmas #wrappingpaper in the archive…but we do have gold paperclips and acid free tape - making do, archivist-style.

@arascot.bsky.social #ArchiveAdventCalendar

Black and white photograph of a group of women giving and receiving Christmas presents. The gifts are being handed out to members of the Women's Land Army from a highly decorated van.

Christmas cheer from the back of a van!

Members of the Women's Land Army receiving festive gifts 🎁 during the Second World War, in this seasonal view from the Young Women's Christian Association archives

(more info at mrc-describe.epexio.com/records/YWC/...)

#ArchiveAdventCalendar #WrappingPaper

#archiveadventcalendar
#day15

Well today was tough for us but we give you Santa visiting one happy and one terrified child 😜 in 1920 with Matron Jane Melrose looking on. Spot the stack of presents at the bottom of the bed beautifully presented with #wrappingpaper & ribbon

@arascot.bsky.social

We have a small display here at #BexleyArchives on Hides department store which includes this paper bag. Hides was a popular shop in Bexleyheath's Broadway 1861-1979 and had wonderful displays every Christmas. #WrappingPaper #ArchiveAdventCalendar

A page from a photo album (1949), two photos, top left and bottom right with some writing (white on a black background)

Here we go with #WrappingPaper for the 15th day of #ArchiveAdventCalendar @arascot.bsky.social

Below is a page from the family album kindly donated by Angela. Here is a photo of a wrapped up present 🎁 and what was in it! The year is 1949.

#WhitchurchHospital
#HospitalChristmas

#archiveadventcalendar
#day16

The former consultants' dining room - that's a lot of #bells
breakfast bell
luncheon bell
dinner bell
supper bell

and only 1 pint of beer - goodness 😂

@arascot.bsky.social

#ArchiveAdventCalendar theme 16 is #Bells. In Dunblane Cathedral lie two bells, smaller of which has words inscribed, "Founded by Lieutenant-General Drummond in the year 1687.” He was a friend of Robert Leighton, & architect of Leighton Library, completed in 1687

Bizarre Victorian Christmas card showing a highwayman bird 'robin' the mail on his trusty steed... Badum tish

Day 2 of my #12DaysOfChristmas posts with a #GothicYuletide twist. This Victorian Christmas card shows a bird 'robin' the mail. See what they did there..? 😆
#CreepyChristmas
#DarkChristmas
#ArchiveChristmasCard
#ArchiveAdventCalendar