20 St. Patrick's Day Ideas

2 years ago I rounded up 20 St. Patrick's Day ideas! It included snacks, crafts, and party ideas. I thought I'd repost it since we're in March and getting ready for the leprechauns to come. I guess we can consider this an encore presentation! Enjoy!

Mrs. Fox's Sweets

As a teacher, I thought of St. Patrick's Day as the thing that keeps me from going berserk in March since the weather is crummy, the kids are nutso from being inside so long, it's a loooong month, and we never had one day off in it. If you are a normal person who works in a lab or a cubical or an airplane you are thinking, "Big whoop. There are lots of months without a day off in them." But remember, I am a teacher and we do get accustomed to celebrating all holidays all the time with a day off. Incorporating the holiday into my curriculum was always a bit sketchy for me, I will admit. First, because I didn't really get the whole fun of it and the whole leprechaun thing. Besides, it's technically a religious holiday and as a public school teacher, I taught seasons or secular holidays. We steer very clear of anything that hints of religion because one slip and you've got 7 emails reaming you for your insensitivity and 7 more for not teaching it more in depth. So yeah, we steer clear. We walk way around all that. But we always made shamrock sun catchers out of tissue paper and graphed Lucky Charms just as every kid in America does on March 17th.

Eighteen25

I was a never a huge beer drinker (well, after college that is) so going to a pub to get my beer on never appealed to me especially since this was before Miller 64 and let's face it....alcohol had too many calories and I needed to save them for the disco fries after the bar/club. If you don't know what disco fries are then you are clearly not a Jersey girl or Canadian although they call it something fancy French. Only in NJ do we think disco is a fancy word for fancy fries. Ok, so the point is, I never cared much to go out on St. Pat's with all the crowds.

His Frugal Servant

I love corned beef but despise cabbage and the idea of a boiled potato that doesn't end up mashed with its best friends, milk and butter, is repulsive to me. Actually any boiled food that isn't an egg is repulsive to me. Ew. Like boiled chicken. Double ew. It's all white and stuff. ick. Ok, so I really had no interest in the food and since I lived close to NYC, good Jewish deli wasn't hard to come by and I could get my corned beef easily.

It Is What It Is

So imagine my surprise when I became a parent and I found out that the leprechaun VISITS us. Or is supposed to, rather. And he does things like turns your milk green and plays other little mischievous tricks on you during the night. And...some leprechauns leave gold "dust" (ie glitter) around too. Oh crap. Our leprechaun was too busy watching reruns of Big Bang and writing a craft blog to even buy milk let alone make it turn green. The other leprechaun was snoring on the couch with his mouth open. oops. I hung my head in shame as other parents, good parents who don't let their kids eat fruit snacks for breakfast, pointed and shook their heads at me.

"Well, I heard she didn't even have a leprechaun visit! And I also heard that her kids went years without a dessert table at their parties. Years. tsk tsk."

Thoughtfully Simple

Pinterest and reading so many blogs has changed my outlook on the holiday now. This year maybe we'll have green milk. At least it will match the other green stuff that is currently in the back of my fridge that used to be food but is now, well, green stuff. And maybe I will search high and low for green attire to dress my girls in. And maybe I already have a corned beef in my freezer waiting for a good boil (although I refuse to boil anything else). Maybe we will get on board with the whole St. Patrick's Day thing after all.