Other Scottish Country Dances for this Day
Today's Musings, History & Folklore
"Snowmen fall from heaven, unassembled."
In 2008, residents of Bethel, Maine, USA, together with help from surrounding towns, built a snow woman measuring 37.21 m (122 ft 1 in) tall, over a period of one month! 13 million pounds of snow were used to build "Olympia the Snow Woman." She was only a few feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty and was decorated with 5 foot wreaths for eyes, 16 skis for eyelashes, tires for buttons, and a 130 foot scarf! Olympia holds the current record for the world's biggest snowperson. ☃️
The Scottish Snowman
In the calm before snowstorms if it is winter in your hemisphere, it's a good day to build a snowman for World Snowman Day! World Snowman Day is celebrated every year on January 18. This particular date was chosen because a figure ‘8’ looks just like the shape of a traditional snowman.
As every child knows, snow must be just the right temperature for snow ball rolling and building, not dry, but just above melting!
World Snowman Day was started Started in 2010 by Cornelius Graetz – a German with the world’s biggest collection of model snowmen!
Regionally, there are snowman building technique variations. In North America, snowmen are generally built with three spheres representing the head, torso, and lower body. In the United Kingdom, two spheres are used, one sphere representing the body and one representing the head. The usual practice is to then decorate and optionally dress the snowman with sticks for arms, stones or coal for eyes, and a carrot for a nose!
In hotter desert climes, you can even build a snowman out of sagebrush or tumbleweeds!
For a video of the charming children's animated film, The Snowman (1982) which includes a dance with a Scottish kilted snowman, click below.