There are many exciting things that happen worldwide during St. Patrick’s, No longer is it just confined to Ireland alone. In fact you’ll find the following to be pretty much the traditional of celebrating St. Patrick
- 1. The whole world takes a green cover, patrons dress in green, food and drinks, even rivers are dyed green!
- 2. A St. Patricks parade takes place
- 3. Visits to the Irish Pubs for Guinness Stout (contrary to popular belief it is the stout that is the national drink of Ireland, green lager isn’t Irish)
- 4. Embracing the Irish way of life
But this year I think I’m going to stay out of discussing about the huge celebration affair from a general point on view and instead zoom in on it from at home with the kids’ point of view. You see there’s festive traditions and then there’s family tradition and each family would have their own touch to add to the festivities.
In my family, we were always taught to know what the root/origin of the celebration was. We were taught how St. Patrick’s began and how shamrocks, leprechauns, the colour green were all more reflections of the Emerald Isle itself then the Saint. Then what we usually did next was have a little close family and friends gathering – a St. Patrick’s party where the adults would catch up with each other and us little ones would try to catch a leprechaun. And honestly St. Patrick’s is the best and easiest celebration to turn into a wholesome green. You really don’t need anything to special to host a get-together. Basically there’s the:
Food
Nothing special is required, we serve traditional Irish meals which mom and the aunts would cook with fresh ingredients from the gardens or the local market. For the kids, they’d always have some green tinted (vegetable colouring) cookie or rainbow coloured muffins.
Drinks
Guinness stout is always there, even when it’s not St. Patrick’s there’s always a stock of those around- great for cooking too! My sister has to have her Bailey’s Irish Cream (Irish Mint Kiss) and the kids are served lime sherbets.
The entertainment
This one, we only ever think for the kids because adults can talk all night till the cows come home and not feel bored. Kids on the other hand have too much energy and frankly the history of St. Patrick isn’t exactly as entertaining as The Pirates of the Caribbean but the legends of leprechauns and shamrocks…ahhh those are mischief thought provokers!
So we focus on them. Someone, usually ‘the uncle’ would be responsible to tell the tales and lore of the magical creatures of the Emerald Isle, hinting we should try to catch one. When our heads were filled with”ideas” we were led out to the patio where conveniently enough, there would already be ‘leprechaun trap making materials’ laid out on the patio table for us. Nothing fancy too, because you know children have the best of imagination and the adults saw as a cardbox box, we saw as a trap bed. And this is really what I want to highlight for any one planning to host a party. Just set aside leaves, ice-cream sticks, used tissue boxes, pieces of lego, toothpicks, some paper, colour pencils, crayons etc and watch the children transform them into brilliant leprechaun traps.
