Last night was one of our personal favorite events here at the bookstore: the annual Celtic Christmas celebration. This year was a bit more low-key than usual; planning often starts around Halloween, but with the book coming out in October we crowdsourced. Instead of making and freezing foods from Galicia, Brittany, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, we put out a “Come all ye” to regulars, who brought various foods. Our friends are great cooks, but their offerings required some spin once they landed on the table. On the one hand, Heather Richards’ beautiful mince pies easily represented Cornwall, but on the other we had oatmeal raisin cookies from the grocery.

Galicia… they grow grapes there, right? And what could be more Scottish than oatmeal? So.

Organized chaos or not, it was a fun night with some regulars and some newbies; the mix it attracts is part of the fun of Celtic Christmas in the first place. The first-timers quickly settled in to the idea that they would be singing along in phonetically reproduced Irish Gaelic and Welsh, and a good time was had by all. Enjoy the photos; there are more on our FB page, taken by the talented Elissa Powers (who has her own FB photo page as elp6n. Her dachshund portraits are lovely.)