Leaping Leprechauns! It’s St. Patrick’s Day!

Just call me Clover O’Lucky…I cannot hide it…St. Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday! I love the green, the whimsical leprechauns and rainbows, the tall tales of hidden gold and potatoes, shamrocks and blarney. Once a year, I practically turn our whole house green on the inside with lights, glitter, and decorations. Of course, I do a St. Patrick’s Day tree, too! I have boxes of Saint Paddy’s Day decorations that my patient husband faithfully pulls down from the storage shelves each year for me. I have decorated for this fun holiday every year since I was a kid.

My parents made all holidays extra fun for us. They went out of their way, but we didn’t know that then, to make entertaining traditions and fun memories for my brother and me. I know now how much they did to make our childhood and growing up years special, and my husband and I have tried to make sure our own kids got the same excitement. I know that my love of this emerald-colored day has rubbed off on our kids…they still look forward to it, even though they’re older now.

As our kids have grown, our St. Patrick’s Day traditions have, too. When they were small (2-4 years old), we mostly just dressed up all in green clothes, read St. Patrick’s Day books, and ate only green foods the whole day. As the kids grew, our fun did, too! We progressed into pretending tiny leprechauns visited our home the night before St. Patrick’s Day. Just like my brother and I did, the kids would leave piles of pennies for the “leprechauns” to hide for them (Easter egg hunt warm up??), and construct leprechaun traps out of boxes, glitter, and paint, and any materials they could find in our recycling bin.

Then our kids got older and started helping to plan and cook our St. Patrick’s Day foods…they grew more and more authentic as the years went on. Once they were middle school aged, we started studying the real person, St. Patrick, all about his life, his teachings, and why we celebrate his accomplishments now. We also learned the story of the shamrock representing the Trinity, Ireland facts and history, and many Irish poems and proverbs. If you are not familiar with these poems and proverbs, I would highly recommend checking them out. They are beautiful and joy-filled!

Now that we have a teenager and a preteen, they are still all about having fun with this holiday. This fills my heart with joy, since I will never be too old to put up my decorations. And by the way, they still like to hear the stories in our books from when they were little. As I am over here beginning the sparkling green transformation of our house, I’ll share some “Luck O’the Irish” activities we have done in the past, and some we will do in the future. *Pulling out my Ireland shirt and shamrock earrings now, while enjoying my coffee in my green cup*

1. Make leprechaun traps (made out of any and everything!), and set out the night before St. Patrick’s Day. (Would that be “St. Patrick’s Day EVE??”)
2. Hide pennies around the house, and have the kids find them.
3. Make colcannon or another traditional Irish recipe. (Lots of people make corned beef on this day, but for some reason, no one in our household is a huge fan, so we choose something different.)
4. Make Accordion Shamrocks.
5. Make lists of all green foods the kids can think of, then choose some to eat that day.
6. Create rainbow pictures with glitter and watercolors.
7. Practice tracing and cutting skills by tracing pennies onto yellow construction paper, then cutting them out to be the “gold” in a paper pot made from black construction paper and glued onto a green background.
8. Use natural food coloring to make “rainbow jello” topped with whipped cream (or dairy-free whipped topping)…these are beautiful layered one color at a time into clear plastic cups!
9. Make a veggie tray that is rainbow colored. Serve with hummus for dipping.
10. Make rainbow fruit kebobs on bamboo skewers (the kids LOVE to help put these together!).
11. Organize a neighborhood shamrock hunt. Send out notices either in physical mailboxes, or on your neighborhood’s social media group, for as many houses as possible to put a shamrock in their window on St. Patrick’s Day. Then, have everyone take a walk and try to find as many as they can! We did this for the first time last year, and it was fun for everyone! Definitely doing this one again!
12. Decorate a St. Patrick’s Day tree.
13. Dress in as much green as is humanly possible (think school spirit day), and maybe even a St. Patrick’s Day shirt. We have even done temporary hair color and temporary tattoos for this extra fun day.
14. Watch the movie called “The Luck of the Irish” that was made in 2001.
15. Use potatoes to make stamps. Cut a brown potato in half, cut a simple shape in to the flesh end, dip in paint (green paint?), and stamp onto thick paper. Very entertaining!
16. Read St. Patrick’s Day books. (My favorites are listed on the  Accordion Shamrocks with Glitter project post.)
17. Paint rocks with shiny, gold tempera paint and then hide them in the yard.
18. Memorize a short Irish poem to recite at dinner.
19. Listen to Irish music. YouTube has a great selection.
20. Watch Riverdance to learn about Irish dancing.
21. Print out a map of Ireland in black and white and color it in. Learn all about what bodies of water and other countries are nearby.
22. Make homemade green play-dough.
23. Our “leprechauns” are sneaky and always dye our milk and scrambled eggs green. We always say the leprechauns did it, even though everyone knows it was mom.
24. Change a lightbulb or two to the green variety to surprise the family in the evening when the lights go on!
25. Practice speaking in an Irish accent, using fun words that are unique to Irish lore. This encourages kids to learn about the Irish culture. It is helpful to listen to samples of different dialects that are spoken in Ireland.

That’s it for now! I’m off to bake some gluten free Irish soda bread and potato soup for lunch! We like to explore with food all month long, so I’d better get cooking! May there be a Pot O’ Gold at the end of your rainbow.