17 March 2015

A little bit Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I may be no more than a wee bit Irish, but St. Patrick's Day is always a day for celebrating in our house.

The math is a little bit fuzzy: my mom is a quarter Irish, and there's a possibility that my dad is also but no one really knows for sure; his last name most likely comes from somewhere in Britain or Ireland, but so far none of the family has managed to definitively trace it back across the Atlantic. I'm at least an eighth Irish, though, so I got to explain to Little Bear this morning that Saint Patrick is one of our patron saints, too. I try to make a point of celebrating all of the different cultures in our kids' very muddled heritage, and St Patrick's Day is sure a fun way to do that!

Everyone is in at least a little bit of green today; Matt found a shirt with some green pinstripes, and Little Bear turned down a properly green shirt for a striped one like Daddy's. To my disappointment, I don't have any green maternity clothes, but I do have a nice green scarf and some slightly-too-warm-for-today green wool socks.

I know it's Lent, but feast days are still meant for feasting; I'm not planning anything terribly over-the-top today, but we did take advantage of the day's festive nature to enjoy cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and later this morning Little Bear and I talked about Saint Patrick while we put a batch of applesauce into the slow cooker. Tonight we'll be having shepherd's pie, Irish soda bread and fresh applesauce: mmmmm.

Over lunch, we read about Saint Patrick in two books of saints, and I drew a three-leafed clover for Little Bear and explained that Saint Patrick used it to teach the Irish people about God the Fathsr, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Simple explanations for little people. :-) Little Bear was all excited to learn that Saint Patrick taught people about God and Jesus, "just like Mama teach people how to be Catholic at the church, and Little Bear and Daddy stay home and eat supper!" (RCIA)

We have a cluttered afternoon, several errands where the timing doesn't quite fit together, but I'm hoping we'll have time to be still again at some point and I can give Little Bear a coloring page—I loved this one, and it's free to print! Catholic Icing also has a great Pinterest board full of crafts and fun food ideas for St Patrick's Day; I'm going to have to try to remember to check it a few days ahead of time next year!

What are you doing to celebrate today?

2 comments:

  1. I made shepherd's pie too :-) It was much tastier than corned beef and cabbage.

    I love his reply regarding the clover! What a cutie :-)

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    1. I've never really liked corned beef either :-) It's the smell in particular that bothers me, and I've managed to use "I'm pregnant—no strong smells" as a good excuse not to make it three of the four Lents we've been married. The shepherd's pie turned out so well this year, though, that I'm pretty sure we're agreed on having it every year for St Patrick's Day!

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