Fun and Easy Ways to Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day
Fun and Easy Ways to Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day
by Charlotte Siems
Green is the name of the game for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day on March 17! Small holidays throughout the year are bright spots in your calendar. They’re a good excuse to have some fun, make memories and create little family traditions.
Holiday celebrations don’t have to be a big stress, Mom. The key is to keep it simple. Planning ahead a bit helps, but last-minute ideas are better than nothing!
Use this list of ideas as a springboard for your own creativity. Pick one
or two and lighten up, because your kids certainly will:
- Decorate simply: shamrock foil garland on the kitchen chandelier, green tablecloth and green and white candles.
- Everybody wear green so you don’t get pinched! Mom will probably need to monitor the pinching so kids don’t get carried away. A good rule of thumb for this type of fun: if the other person doesn’t think it’s funny, it’s not funny—so stop.
- Have green milk on your cereal. (Mom gets up early and sneaks green food coloring into the jug of milk!)
- Make shamrock sugar cookies. Or bake green-frosted cupcakes. Or buy some.
- Have green food for dinner: green mashed potatoes, green jello, green drinks. Or make Irish stew and Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day supper.
- Read a story about St. Patrick and discuss his life and the symbolism he used to teach people.
- Watch the old Disney movie Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
As an older mom looking back over the years, I can’t say that I regret making the effort to celebrate the little holidays. I’m glad I went a little above and beyond the daily grind to make those days special for my children. Now they have those memories tucked away to strengthen their ties to home.
And I’m grateful that I still have years ahead with the children (and grandchildren) to celebrate some more!
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