Scots could celebrate Christmas with family, if restrictions designed to bring coronavirus under control work.
Nicola Sturgeon says the more people stick to the rules now the better the chance of lockdown easing over the festive period.
Speaking at her daily coronavirus briefing today, the First Minister said curtailment of the hospitality industry is necessary to get handle on the soaring number of new cases reported daily.
She said: "I want us to be able to celebrate Christmas as normally as it is possible to do within the context of a global pandemic.
"My message to people is the more we all stick with these really difficult restrictions right now, the more chance there will be of us doing that."
Ms Sturgeon was responding to a statement by clinical director Jason Leitch, who warned families to prepare for a 'digital Christmas' during a radio interview this morning.
She cautioned that if Christmas was tomorrow she'd have make some "pretty harsh" decisions.
However, with nine weeks to go, Ms Sturgeon hopes efforts now will reduce the infection rate to a safer level.
She pointed out: "We're trying to deal decisively with an upsurge in the virus just now so can give ourselves the best chance of normality at Christmas.
"That is part of the objective we are working to right now."
But she cautioned that like every other country, Christmas in Scotland "is not going to be absolutely normal without any restrictions."
Ms Sturgeon also announced an overnight rise of 17 in the Scottish death toll and a further 1,712 new confirmed cases, 584 of them in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
A draft the Scottish Government's new coronavirus winter plan will be published tomorrow, and it is believed will include five new tiers to manage outbreaks across the country.
