Friday December 12th 2025
Christmas card winners with councillors McAteer and Pirone
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
The convener of Scottish Borders Council has completed one of his most stressful tasks of the year – choosing the local authority’s winning Christmas card.
Hawick & Hermitage’s Independent elected representative Watson McAteer spends time overseeing meetings of the full council, at which major decisions are made.
But deciding which school pupil’s festive design was chosen to adorn the local authority’s Christmas card proved just as demanding.
In the end it was Walkerburn Primary School’s Bonnie Thompson’s cheerful and traditional Christmas pudding design that won the competition, which saw dozens of entries from pupils throughout the school.
As well as seeing her design feature as the council’s main Christmas card, the Primary 7 pupil was also presented with a £20 voucher.
Second place went to P7 Esme Amos who produced a lovely wreath style card, she received a £15 book voucher in third place was P5 Euan Thompson, who’s design was a scotty dog, he received a £10 book token.
Councillor McAteer said: “We choose a different school each year to run our Christmas card competition, and we were thrilled to work with Walkerburn Primary School this festive season.
“It was a really difficult decision to decide on the winning design, but the warm festive feel of Bonnie’s design won us all over.
“A big thank you to staff for helping to co-ordinate the competition.”
Councillor Julie Pirone, SBC’s executive member for Education, Youth Development and Lifelong Learning, said: “It’s wonderful to see the imagination and enthusiasm of our pupils at Walkerburn Primary completely shines through in this year’s Christmas card competition.
“Bonnie’s design captures the warmth and tradition of the festive season, and I’d like to congratulate all the entrants for their fantastic contributions.
“Events like this help us to highlight the talent in our schools and bring our communities together in celebration at a special time of year.”
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