Pipehacker Holiday Gift Guide No. 5: Last Minute Bagpipe Shopping

Can you believe the holiday season is upon us once more? Here at Pipehacker we love making it yourself, but sometimes there is no substitute for a well crafted, high quality item. We hope you’ve enjoyed these past few weeks’ worth of gift guides at Pipehacker.com. Pipehacker hopes that Santa brings all the good little piper girls and boys everything they wanted!

Last Minute Bagpiping Gifts

There might not be enough time to order any more gear and have it in time for Christmas, but these last minute items offer excellent gift ideas and are but a click away.

Credits to Pipetunes.ca. Jim McGillivray’s Pipetunes continues to surprise the piping world with plenty of great content and loads of tunes to suit any taste. A healthy helping of credits to download tunes is the perfect gift. Any modern piper with any sense would be like a kid in a candy store with a gift like this.

Online instruction. Just about any great piper is offering lessons over VoIP technology such as Skype these days. Geography is no longer an excuse to get great instruction, and you never have to leave your house. Now is as good a time as any to start getting those extra lessons in. There are plenty good folks choose from, but you can get a good start with The Piper’s DoJo.

Donation to the Mpingo Conservation Project. The mpingo tree is the tree that gives us African blackwood—the wood that makes our Highland bagpipes. African blackwood is in danger of becoming commercially extinct because of economic pressures and illegal activity. This organization works alongside the governments of African nations such as Tanzania to develop sustainable forestry programs for the benefit of local economies and the development of commercially viable timber. Making a donation would be an excellent gift for the globally conscious piper.

Donation to the Highland Games or competition of your choice. More of a gift idea than a specific gift. It is easy to forget about the dedicated folks who put together the competitions that give so much to pipers and drummers here in the eastern USA. This year, make a holiday donation to your favorite games or competition or the event that gives the most to you as a piper. I’m sure they will appreciate the help in their efforts to continue to throw the kinds of events you like attending as a bagpiper.