A Piping Good Christmas!

Well I said I would post more here but than the Christmas holiday got the better of me. I had an excellent holiday and received a few bagpipe related gifts.

First, I received a couple of Dropkick Murphys shirts. Even though I'm not a huge fan of their music, it's hard to find clothing that features bagpipes, much less a skeleton playing the bagpipes!



These shirts also hold the distinction of being my only skeleton adorned clothing, skeletons aren't really my style either but I will make an exception when they're playing my favorite instrument.

I also got some Dropkick Murphys stickers to put on my bagpipe case. I plan on doing a future post on what I keep in my bagpipe case so you'll have to wait until than to see the stickers.

The only other directly bagpiping related item I received was the book, Bagpipe Brothers: The FDNY Band's True Story of Tragedy, Mourning, and Recovery by Kerry Sheridan. This book details the experiences of New York City's Emerald Society Bagpipe Band after 9/11. Now I just got the book so I've barely cracked its cover, but so far it's really interesting. When I'm done reading it I'll post a review here.

I do plan to use some of my Christmas money to buy myself some Ghillie Brogues, these are traditional band bagpiping shoes. Once I get the actual shoes I'll post a photo here, but here's a photo I found online that gives you a visual:


Since my band is not a competitive band, some of what we wear is uniform, and some is not. For example, our kilts, flashings (that bit of cloth you see hanging off the side of the socks), hose (socks), and Glengarry (hat) are all uniform. Our white dress shirts are basically uniform too.

But my belt buckle, kilt pin, sgian dubh (the knife that goes in the sock), sporran (bag that hangs about the waist), and a pin that I also have in my Glengarry are all specific to my husbands clan-remember I'm not Scottish so I have to steal from him.

Up until now everyone in my band has just worn black shoes, whatever kind and type we like. But we've decided to make the shoes uniform too. I've been putting off buying them because I want to get what I hope will be the more comfortable but unfortunately more expensive kind of Ghillie Brogues...I do have to march in them after all. But we have a performance coming up this at a local Burn's Dinner, and than of course St. Patrick's Day will be here before we know it. Plus it would be nice to get them broken in before parade season.

Anyone else get any good bagpiping related gifts??

Pipe on!