"Breakin’ Up Christmas" is both the name for 12 days of partying, dancing and music making ending up on January 6th, Old Christmas day, and also a dance tune used during that period. The tradition comes from the area that roughly includes Surry County NC, nearby Grayson and Carroll counties in VA, and the city of Galax between them. It may have been composed by Preston ‘Pet’ McKinney, a fiddler and Civil War veteran from Lambsburg, VA. Tommy Jarrell cited McKinney as one of his early influences. It was printed in Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983) and Clare Milliner & Walt Koken's Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes (2011). It was recorded by Tommy Jarrell, Cockerham, Jarrell and Jenkins on Back Home in the Blue Ridge, Leftwich & Higginbotham on No One to Bring Home Tonight (1984), Norman Edmonds (southwest Va.), Tommy Jarrell on Tommy Jarrell, vol. 2 (2009), Micheal and McCreesh on Dance, Like a Wave of the Sea (1978), Fred Cockerham on Southern Clawhammer Banjo, The Kimble Family on Old Originals, Vol. I, The Fuzzy Mountain String Band on Summer Oaks and Porch (1973) and John McCutcheon on Winter Solstice (1984).