Friday, March 18, 2011

St. Patty's Day Slacker

I love holidays.  Christmas is my favorite but I really love them all.  Who doesn't love a reason to decorate, celebrate and bake?  Doing those things adds such a cheery feeling to what might otherwise be an ordinary day.  It's so much fun to get the kids involved and hopefully create lasting memories for all of us.

I tend to start my holiday decorating about 2-4 weeks before the holiday arrives.  Since my Christmas decorating is a bit more involved and I like to feel that I have plenty of time to enjoy the fruits of my labor, I usually start that project the day after Thanksgiving and leave the decor up until  New Year's.  The rest of the holidays are allotted about 2 weeks of full decor but then it all comes down the day after the holiday is over.

So you see that I have a system in place and some standard guidelines for my holiday decorating schedule (laugh if you want to), yet I somehow missed St. Patrick's Day this year.  I found tons of cute decorating ideas online and saved them all so that I wouldn't have to search over and over again to find them, and I made sure that there was green food coloring in my pantry for whatever food and/or drink that I might decide to dye green on that day.  I colored the girls' milk pink for Valentine's Day so making it green this time around was on my list and I was also thinking of making green eggs and green cupcakes, but none of that happened.  I'm not sure why really, it's not like I didn't know the date considering that St. Patrick's Day is always on March 17th, so I can't use that as an excuse.  It just snuck up on me like those darn little leprechauns!

The only decor that made it out for this green holiday were some lonely little shamrock window clings that barely even cling anymore.  No fun displays on the fireplace mantel, no wreath on the door, no green place settings on the table - NOTHING!  I guess I shouldn't say nothing b/c my husband is a teacher and the PTA at his school brings in food, treats and drinks for anything and everything that even remotely resembles a holiday, so he did come home with a few green carnations and some mini pots filled with candy wrapped in gold foil, which became our table centerpiece.  Barely a centerpiece in my book but better than nothing.  Then my guilt got the best of me and I whipped up some shamrock shaped sugar cookies and had the girls help me decorate them.  And that was the extent of our St. Patrick's Day celebration.  Boring!

In my defense I will say that places like Target and Wal-Mart really don't make it easy to do this holiday up right.  For any other holiday they dedicate at least 2-3 aisles to candy, cards, decor, and everything else, but for St. Patrick's Day they give you one measly end cap to shop from.  And maybe a few items in the Dollar Spot if you're lucky.  I suppose I could have gone to Party City or maybe even tried art and craft supply stores like Michael's or Hobby Lobby, but I'm not at those stores every day as I am Target and Wal-Mart so it's not quite as convenient.

It's not like I'm a true Irish girl straight from The Emerald Isle but my grandma was part Irish and boy was she proud of it.  She loved being Irish!  I remember there being green beer at her house on St. Patrick's Day (at the time I wasn't even close to being of legal drinking age but it sure did look good) and she had various plaques and wall hangings with Irish sayings on them.  One of my favorites (and I have no idea how or why I remember this) was - "An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold on to one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth." It's especially funny to me b/c my Grandma wasn't a big drinker but that plaque hung on her wall for as long as I can remember.  I think there were coffee mugs too and she grew these cute little flowers called Bells of Ireland.  Truthfully I think that she just liked anything having to do with Ireland or being Irish:)

Grandma's Bells of Ireland flowers

So as someone that is
sort of Irish and that just flat out enjoys a fun holiday celebration I would appreciate a bit more oomph! from retailers when it comes to their St. Patty's Day offerings.  The more I think about it the more I really like this holiday, Irish or not.   I mean, really - you're not expected to give gifts or cards to anyone, it's a great excuse to drink beer and eat corned beef, and who doesn't love those cute little leprechauns and their pots of gold?  What a fun, no pressure holiday!

Here are some of the things I'll be doing for next year:

Rag wreath

Shamrock garland






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