St. Patrick’s Day

St. Patrick’s Day 2024

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We actually celebrated yesterday, right after we picked Bunny up for spring break. I’m so glad she could be home with us for all of our St. Patrick’s Day traditions.

We still haven’t caught the leprechaun, but this year, for the first time, we did see him!

In addition to a minty treat, he left us with Lucky Charms…this time, with dragon marshmallows!1

In keeping with the theme of the day (green), I made some matcha milk boba tea, and topped it with lavender-lemonade whipped cream:

We had our traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage, roast carrots and potatoes, and soda bread with Irish butter:

And a Guinness cake for dessert!

Tomorrow, we get to celebrate Turkey’s 21st birthday (also a day early!).

Mani Monday

Can you believe St. Patrick’s Day is less than a week away?!? I was inspired by the holiday for this week’s Mani Monday, which features two shades of Holo Taco green: the dark “Lost in the Woods” and the lighter “Mint Mojito.” I went with a swirly, occasionally spiral-y pattern on top, reminiscent of the snakes St. Patrick is said to have driven out of Ireland.

Mani Monday

I love St. Patrick’s Day so much, I dedicated a second mani to it, this one using all three different shades of green nail polish I have (Pacifica “Sea Monster,” Sally Hansen Miracle Gel “Me, My Elf and I,” and Holo Taco “Wicked Potion”), plus gold glitter (Sally Hansen Miracle Gel “Sunken Treasure”)…I think it’s leprechaun approved!

St. Patrick’s Day 2023

Happy St. Paddy’s Day! We started the day as we always do, by setting out our leprechaun trap:

And, as always, we found evidence that Lucky had visited, but no leprechaun himself…he did leave some nice candy, though!

We had our traditional St. Patrick’s Day breakfast of Lucky Charms:

And our standard dinner of corned beef and cabbage, roast potatoes and carrots, and soda bread with Irish butter. Oh, and a local favorite, Ski soda, just because the bottle is green!

Dessert was a little different…Bunny took our recipe for Guinness cake and made mini bundt cakes. Just as delicious, but so much more adorable!

It was a fun day, but only a warm-up to an even bigger day tomorrow…stay tuned!

Mani Monday

I was inspired by one of my Erstwilder Care Bears brooches to create a rainbow mani for St. Patrick’s Day! I went with Sally Hansen Miracle Gel “Can’t Beet Royalty,” “Eternally Grapefruit,” “Sunbrella,” “Me, My Elf and I,” and “Tidal Wave.” I’m not going to lie, the orange isn’t quite what I wanted, but it is what I had. I also feel bad about leaving out purple, my favorite color, but alas, I only have five fingers on each hand. To make up for that disappointment, I used “Sunken Treasure” to add a little gold glitter on top of each color, because you always look for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

St. Patrick’s Day 2022

Yesterday was one of my favorite days of the whole year (and one of the most delicious!)…St. Patrick’s Day!

We set our leprechaun trap:

We still didn’t manage to catch Lucky, though he did leave us a treat:

I wore green, glitter, and rainbows on a St. Patrick’s Day trip to the Missouri Botanical Garden. We didn’t find any shamrocks, but we did read a few of our favorite St. Patrick’s Day books while we were there.

I also had fun choosing just the right outfit in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I have a full-on leprechaun suit and a clover dress, but in the end, I decided to go with fusion fashion…a green dirndl!

We had our traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage, roast carrots and potatoes, and soda bread with Irish butter. This year, I picked Ski soda to go with the meal, mostly because the bottle is green (and it’s nice to support local businesses).

And our favorite Guinness cake for dessert. I don’t know if it was just because I decorated it with chocolate sprinkles, but it looked even more like a donut to me than it usually does!

Up next…a two-day celebration of Turkey’s 19th birthday!

St. Patrick’s Day in the Time of COVID-19

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Can you believe this is the second time we’ve celebrated this holiday in the time of COVID-19?!? Of course, last year, we really didn’t know what we were in for yet, and this year, we’re all hoping that we can see a light at the end of the tunnel, but either way, our family celebration remained largely unchanged, although this year, we did start celebrating pretty early in the month with Shamrock Shakes (almost impossible to find in our area this year, so when we did pinpoint a location that was offering them, we jumped on it!) and a Green River Soda cheesecake from Eli’s:

We started the day with Lucky Charms and the leprechaun trap…spoilers, we didn’t catch him (again!)!

We read all of our favorite St. Patrick’s Day books, watched all of the Ireland episodes of Rick Steves’ Europe we have on disc, and also watched Aerial Ireland. I really enjoyed “Shamrock Day” in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While it wasn’t a huge event like some, there were some special items, including what look suspiciously like Shamrock Shakes!

I also enjoyed giving a few of my favorite neighbors a Shamrock Suit to match mine:

The highlight of the day (for me at least) was dinner. I love corned beef and cabbage and all the trimmings!

And of course we had Guinness cake for dessert, which is a family favorite!

We had a nice St. Patrick’s Day, as we always do, but I really hope that next time the holiday rolls around, things in the world are a little more normal!

St. Patrick’s Day 2020

St. Patrick’s Day is one of our favorite holidays, and I was determined to celebrate it as we usually do, which honestly wasn’t too difficult, because our observation of the day very rarely takes us out of the house!

I started preparing for the day a few weeks ago, which in retrospect was probably a good thing. New this year: a lot of my supplies were purchased at Aldi!

I was so well-stocked that our celebration began last night, with a dinner of Irish-style ale & onion bangers, plus homemade colcannon:

We set our leprechaun trap as we usually do, and, as always, caught no leprechaun. We did find some nice mint patties, though!

We enjoyed our traditional breakfast of Lucky Charms, and Irish Breakfast tea for those who weren’t interested in coffee:

We had a few special treats with lunch:

Even with nowhere to go, I wore green for St. Patrick’s Day (and Mary Blair March!):

And we enjoyed our traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage, roast potatoes and carrots, and soda bread with Irish butter (plus leftover colcannon from yesterday):

And for dessert, we had our favorite Guinness cake:

We celebrated as we always do, and it was a fun and delicious day. There was something low-key about it, though…it’s hard to ignore world events, even when we’re having fun at home!

Sartorial Saturday…On a Sunday–Green on Green

Happy Mary Blair Week!

I think my favorite thing about Mary Blair’s artwork is her unorthodox use of color. Not only did she illustrate normal objects in unusual colors, like emerald skies and pink horses, she also paired unexpected colors with great success. This year, I decided to pair two shades of green I normally wouldn’t wear together in her honor, and I’m very pleased with the result…it’s the perfect green overload for St. Patrick’s Day!

Of course I had to add in green accessories, too, including an all green stack of Splendette Duchess Bangles, and my “lucky” green frog brooch from Erstwilder:

How do you like to wear green for St. Patrick’s Day?

St. Patrick’s Eve

Sometimes, you just have to celebrate a holiday on an alternate day. St. Patrick’s Day is one of those days for us this year, so today, we had a St. Patrick’s Eve celebration!

We started with our traditional breakfast of Lucky Charms…but this time, they were Lucky Charms with Frosted Flakes! They were very popular. We also checked our Leprechaun trap, and discovered that, as always, it was empty. There were some delicious mints for a consolation prize, though!

We had a couple of special treats with lunch…Irish cheddar, and St. Patrick’s Day Cakes:

And our traditional St. Paddy’s dinner…well, mostly traditional. Instead of the roasted potatoes I usually make to go with the corned beef and cabbage, carrots, and soda bread, I made mashed potatoes and colcannon:


And our favorite Guinness cake for dessert!

It was a little weird celebrating a day early, but any family feast is a fun occasion, no matter when it takes place!