According to their website, the mission of the Celtic Cultural Alliance is to preserve and promote the Celtic culture, through education, musical presentations, and traditional competitions in athletics, piping and dance. The Celtic Classic (now in it's 28th year) historically attracts over 260,000 visitors to downtown Historic Bethlehem, Northeastern Pennsylvania. Residents of the Lehigh Valley comprise approximately forty percent (40%) of the patrons, while the remaining sixty percent (60%) are visitors from areas throughout the United States and abroad. The Ol' Man and I attended last night for the first time...What fun! We had haggis (which isn't nearly as awful as it's purported to be), bridies and chips, and Irish Stout (of course!). They had tons of vendors selling everything from pint glasses to stained glass, clothes (t-shirts to beautiful Irish sweaters), jewelry, kilts, shortbread and more. I bought the Ol' Man a Guiness rugby shirt for this birthday, and we found these wonderful, hand made wooden swords for the kids for a great Christmas present. They should have a blast whacking the crap out of each other. There might be a hospital trip in our future. The weather was perfect (nice and cool) and we got to see some Highland games (World Invitational Caber Championships - that's where they throw the telephone pole sized log!). Lots of guys in kilts. One of the kilt vendors was trying to talk a guy into buying a kilt...asking him why he would wear pants that "bind" when he could be wearing a comfortable kilt! When you think about it, it really makes sense....men should wear skirts and women are more suited to pants. We had a blast and will go again.
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