GALASHIELS has been named as Scotland’s leading loveless location during the festive period.
Supermarket giant Tesco have announced that its Galashiels store has recorded the lowest sales for mistletoe in the country.
And the miserly amount of mistletoe sold in the Paton Street store means it saw the third worst sales in the UK.
Only Tesco’s stores in Tamworth in Staffordshire and Birmingham recorded less of the pucker-up plant leaving its shelves.
The low sales in Galashiels are despite Tesco announcing a 65 per cent increase of mistletoe across its UK stores.
Romans believed mistletoe represented peace, love and understanding, while in the UK, people would bring a branch into a house at Christmas to protect the property.
It was then claimed that any woman walking underneath mistletoe had to accept the invite of a kiss, or she would become an old maid.
But kissing only became a national festive tradition in the 18th century.
Behind Galashiels in the top 10 loveless communities was Perth, Leeds, Bristol, Hereford, Leicester and the London boroughs of Wanstead and Deptford.
But those looking for some lip action in Scotland should jump on a ferry, with Lerwick in the Shetland Islands recording the second-highest mistletoe sales in the whole of the UK.