Christmas With The Celts

Bagpipes, step dancers, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town in a Dublin accent.

Christmas With The Celts started life as a PBS television special and has grown into something that is genuinely hard to categorize: timeless Irish Christmas carols and contemporary songs, all played on Irish instrumentation, with lively Irish dance threaded through the whole thing. You get God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Little Drummer Boy and Santa Claus is Coming to Town and John Lennon's Happy Christmas, sitting alongside traditional Irish tunes.

The lineup stars Emerald Rae on vocals and fiddle, Patrick D'Arcy from Dublin on Uilleann pipes, who has played with U2, Sting and Josh Groban, and Ric Blair on vocals, guitar, bodhran, Irish whistles, bass and drums, plus the dancers.

Every year is different. The Celts add new Christmas hits, original material and fresh dance tunes each season, so no two performances are the same show.

Two nights. This is the Wednesday. They also play the Tuesday before it.

Where to go. The Playhouse is at 80 East Ridge Road in Ridgefield, behind the town hall, and it is an easy run in from anywhere in lower Fairfield County.