To those who are interested in actually attending a Burns' Night I would suggest contacting your local Scottish Country Dance group. I've just gotten back from the one in Charlotteville, VA which I attend each year. My SO is a dancer with the Frederick, MD group and each year we drive down on Friday night, she dances the Saturday afternoon dance, and then we go to the annual Burns' Dinner at Mitchie Taven (an old historic tavern next to Monticello, Jefferson's home). The haggis is piped in and there is always an expatriate Scot to recite Burns Ode to Haggis in broad Scots, which is passed (and passed) around. The Selkirks Grace, the Toast to the Lassies and a return Toast of the Lassies, and and 18th Century meal follows with much wine and merriment with low hewn beams lit by nothing but candle light.

My ancestry is also Scots-Irish, with our progentator being driven out of Scotland to County Down, building the first Presbytrian church in Ireland as well as the third Masonic lodge in Newtonards, before sailing to St. Johns, in Canada to build the second Presbyterian Church there. Next year I plan to take my daughter and grandson, to give them a taste of their past.