Every year around this time, the Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh runs a competition for sighting of the elusive mythological creature known as the haggis, which is said to roam in Scotland. You can join in this through checking out ten haggis cameras the paper has set up at its Haggis Hunt site. You can win prizes… but before we go further, should you be reading this on New Year’s eve, go take a look at the shot of Edinburgh Castle, where if the timing is right you’ll be likely to see fireworks, and check out the camera at Stonehaven, where you might see balls of fire being hurled into the harbor.

The ten haggis cams offer interesting shots at any time, though. At George Square in Glasgow it’s been fun to see a festive holiday carnival, including a ferris wheel in lights, and now you can watch as the festival is taken down, the strings of light come off the statues, and the square returns to its daily life as part of Glasgow city center. You could look for haggis (no worries, you will recognize one instantly) among the shoppers and tourists along the royal mile in Edinburgh or out in the far flung haggis diaspora of New Delhi, India. The camera angle at Eilean Donan Castle in Scotland’s northwest moves about now and again, so you might see a close up of the castle itself, a shot of houses on a nearby hillside, or a view of snowy mountains beyond the castle. As to the prizes, the competition runs through Burns night on 25 January (several of the cameras stay active the year around, though) and you could win hotel stays, rounds of golf at the historic course at St. Andrews, and perhaps packets of haggis flavored crisps, also known as potato chips.

Reading about those chips, you might be saying to yourself:

I thought haggis was something to eat? It is. Basically it’s the innards of sheep or beef mixed with oatmeal and spices and boiled. There are vegetarian versions too. The connection between the mythological creature and the dish comes in for a take it with several grains of salt explanation at the Haggis Hunt site.

So people in Scotland eat haggis all the time then?
No. Some do not eat it at all, and for some it’s a very occasional dish. While it by no means appears on every restaurant’s menu, in the neighborhood where I stay in Glasgow, I can walk down the busy shopping street and pass a fast food place which has haddock and chips, burger and chips, and haggis and chips on its menu board. There’s an upscale bakery a few shops down which often has mini haggis pies — pie crusts about two inches in diameter filled with haggis — in its display. Across the road there is a pizza place, with haggis among the many choices for toppings. At the grocers, you can get haggis in a tin any time of year, and especially in January as people are getting ready to celebrate Burns night, vacuum packed bags of both meat and vegetarian haggis for you to take home and prepare start appearing. Haggis as a tv dinner, both meat and vegetarian versions and accompanied by traditional sides of neeps and tatties — turnips and potatoes — gave me a good laugh the first time I saw it. Sightings of these, too, are more common around Burns night.

Okay, so what is the connection between Robert Burns and haggis anyway? and why is haggis so popular in Scotland?
Robert Burns was a farmer in his adult life and grew up on a farm, so he likely ate his share of haggis in eighteenth century Scotland. The best known connection, though, is Address to a Haggis, a poem Burns wrote. It’s actually about the independent character of the Scots and a call to national pride, with haggis as a metaphor. National bard, national pride, and history put together equal pride in a national dish.

As you are checking out the haggis cams or contemplating making your own dish of haggis, you might also want to

learn more about those fireballs and what else goes on in Stonehaven
get a heads up on a music festival coming up in Glasgow
choose music of Scotland to listen to
hear musician Julie Fowlis speak and sing in Scottish Gaelic, a language few of her fellow Scots, and fewer still around the world, still speak and understand

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If I could spend a day going all over the US, with instant transport from one place to another and an unlimited budget, here is where I’d go and what I’d do in 2012….some of these places I discovered in 2011, others I’ve known for a long time and one I’ve never visited….

Morning

Wake up at:

• The Down East perfection of the Pentagöet Inn, Castine, Maine or
• The homey Library Suite at the Prairie Moon Bed & Breakfast, Hutchinson, Kansas or
• A Southern grande dame, the King Edward Hotel, Jackson, Mississippi or
• A giant of literary history at the Algonquin Hotel, New York City

Breakfast at:

• Bah’s Bakehouse (muffins! scones!) near the Castine waterfront or
• Billy’s Downtown Diner (omelettes!) in downtown Bethlehem, Pennsylvania or
• The Homemade Cafe (pecan waffles! home fries!) in Berkeley, California

Spend the morning:

• Thinking and learning at the National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri or
• Bodysurfing on the Na Pali Coast, Kauai or
• Marveling at musical craftsmanship at the American Banjo Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma or
• Stepping back into the Revolution at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

Lunch

Feeling seafood-ish for my midday meal at:

• Paia Fish Market, Maui (or these other places to eat in Paia) or
• Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington

Afternoon

Afternoon spent:

• Shopping in gracious Savannah, Georgia or
• Heating up in a mud bath at either Dr. Wilkinson’s in Calistoga, California or the Bath House in Jemez Springs, New Mexico or
• Taking a Chicago Architecture Foundation docent-led river cruise past incredible buildings in Chicago, Illinois or
• Going for a swim in Wekiwa Springs, Florida or Barton Springs in Austin, Texas or the spring-fed pool at Balmorhea State Park in western Texas (I’ve always wanted to see Balmorhea.)

Mid-afternoon snack:

• Garrett Popcorn in Chicago (The Chicago Mix flavor, of course) or
• A Ted Drewes frozen custard at the original stand on Route 66, St. Louis, Missouri

Evening

Sunset:

• Key West, Florida or
• Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California

Dinner at:

• Brady Tavern, Tulsa, Oklahoma or
• The Old Lahaina Luau, Maui or
• Really, any BBQ joint in Memphis, Tennessee

Wrap it up with:

• WaterFire in Providence, Rhode Island or
• YOUR recommendation down in the comments! Give us some ideas, from anywhere in the US, for an evening activity.

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A music festival during the famously cold and changeable weather of New England in January? That’s a time when musicians are usually off the road and making plans for their next year of gigs and travels. As professional musicians, festival founders Laura Cortese and Shannon Heaton knew about that, and with their involvement in varied Celtic music projects around the Boston area, they realized something else: there was no single festival where musicians from Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, and other Celtic traditions which flourish in the region focused on getting together and interacting. So they started one: the Boston Celtic Music Festival, BCM Fest as it’s known for short. Nearly a decade later, this artist founded and still artist run festival is going strong.

This year, the festival takes place on January 6th and 7th, with all the events in venues near Harvard Square in Cambridge. Things kick off with a concert featuring many of Boston’s best Celtic singers and players at the intimate Club Passim. This is followed by the Boston Urban Ceilidh, an event which has been described as Celtic music meets mosh pit. Maybe that’s a bit extreme — or maybe not — but in any case there will be high energy dancing to high energy music music from across the Celtic world, along with instruction in Celtic dance steps if you like. The ceilidh has been held in different places around the area through the years. This time. it will be at The Atrium, close enough to Passim that there will be a sure to be fun procession from one venue to the other as the concert winds down and the dance begins.

On Saturday, the day will be be filled with concerts and workshops, back at Club Passim, and in several areas of First Parish Church nearby. NØÍR will offer a meeting of Irish and N Irish and Norwegian music, Ken Perlman and Jim Prendergast will play a range of Irish, Scottish, Canadian and American tunes and songs on five string banjo and guitar, Kyle Carey will bring her thoughtful original songs drawing on her experiences in Appalachia, Cape Breton, and Ireland, and Hannah Sanders and Liz Simmons will add rich voices in lead and harmony to traditional and contemporary folk song. That’s just an inkling of what will be going on during the day, and in keeping with what has become a BCMFest tradition of sorts there are bound to be a few less than serious things, too. Already scheduled are a Bawdy Breakfast set of songs and a look at several of Michael Jackson’s hits done Celtic style.

To close out the festival there’s another BCMFest tradition: a concert in the sanctuary of First Parish Church, a place whose spare setting and long connection with history and faith lend itself to welcoming music. Guitar wizards Matt Heaton and Flynn Cohen will present the concert, which will include many festival performers along with special guests, as all join to share celebration of music, winter, and the Celtic communities of New England.

there’s information about tickets, schedules and other festival things at
Boston Celtic Music Festival web site

you might also want to
check out a nearby place to eat: Oggi Gourmet at Harvard Square
take a look back at what things were like at earlier years of the festival
learn more about upcoming events at Club Passim

photograph of Matt and Shannon Heaton performing at Club Passim is by Kerry Dexter, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting that.

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This is the time of year when most writers would rather not be writing — and so there are a host of “best of” “worst of” and “insert-superlative-here” year in review lists appearing in blogs, magazines, newspapers.

I’ve read a bunch of them and believe this summary applies universally: 2011 was great, it sucked, but keep reading me/us anyway because basically I/we deserve congratulations for existing. Optional post-filler: here are the things I/we plan to do in 2012, it will be a heckuva year!

It’s all rather tiring.

But hey. I’m as averse to working in the last week of the year as any writer, so rather than trying to come up with some sort of a clever concept for repackaging old stories, I decided to enlist my favorite force in all the world: randomness.

Using a random number generator, I shall now pick a post by each Perceptive Travel blogger. First, I’ll randomly select a week of the year, from 1-52.  Since most of us only contribute once weekly, that should be criteria enough. If there happens to be more than one post from a blogger in that week, I’ll flip a coin.

So ladies and gentlemen, if you please: The Random Guide to Perceptive Travel blog’s 2011:

• Alison: Life Lessons from a Submarine in Groton, Connecticut.
• Brian: BKK Must Eats: Salmon Mania Roll at Zen Cucina in Bangkok, Thailand.
• Kerry: Singing Canada’s History: Maria Dunn in Alberta and other parts of Canada.
• Liz: Spotlight on New Zealand: Karangahake Gorge in New Zealand.
• Sheila: Dear Ms. Phone: Where the Heck Am I? somewhere in the world.

I should add that our Dear Leader (Tim) also contributes here –  however, since he lacks his own category in our navigation (right)  I’m afraid I’m way too lazy on a holiday week to try to figure out how to fit his posts into my randomness scheme.

But perhaps he will be mollified by my random selection of a piece from the webzine.  (Method: I randomly chose a month from 1-12, landing on November. Then counted the articles in the issue — 5 — and randomly selected a number from 1-5.)

The big random winner:

Goldi-Lox and the Three Bears in Western Canada, by David Lee Drotar.

And with that, let’s all move on to 2012. I’m sure it will be one heckuva year.

In Christchurch, New Zealand it’s the day after Christmas
and all through the house, no one is moving,
not even the house.

It had been a different sight just two days before
when the ground started shaking
and we all ran, yet again, for the door.

The Christmas tree, decorated so beautifully just that morning,
jumped up in the air and fell on it’s side,
It’s decorations scattered far and wide.

Shocked and dismayed, we yelled and we screamed
at Mother Nature ‘to please just leave us be’.
After thousands of shakes over this past year,
surely, especially around Christmas, we deserved a reprieve.

A break in the shakes all that we requested,
instead what we got was simply stronger shakes
causing many more breaks and many more tears
in the homes throughout this broken town.

But despite this latest shake sequence
Santa didn’t let us down
There might not be any chimneys left in this town
but still Santa managed to deliver and on time.

Kids, big and small, awoke to the sight
of Xmas trees glowing with glitter and lights
standing perfectly upright
And with plenty of Santa presents hidden underneath.

Gifts were exchanged with much laughter and tears,
and Mother Nature decided to play nice
by limiting her multiple shakes and tremors
To only magnitude four or three.

And so now it’s the day after Christmas
And all through the house,
No one is stirring
Not even the house.

And everyone in Christchurch no doubt
now has but one wish - for a shake-free New Year!