My Accidental St. Patty's Party

Oh, how I do love to be festive. But, I must admit that as a non-Catholic, non-Irish, non-university-student, this particular holiday always seems to sneak up on me and leave me quite unenthused. Dress your kid in green--check. Next.

A few years ago, I was glancing online at a few make-work projects cute craft and treat ideas for the kids for St. Patrick's Day, but decided against anything extraordinary. I considered making something Irish for supper and, again, decided instead to go with our family's 15-minute meal standby. . . chicken fajita wraps.

As I was cutting veggies to throw in with the pre-cooked chicken pieces, I remembered a blog post I had seen of a fancy St. Patty's breakfast fritatta. It inspired me to cut the bell peppers into rings instead of my regular strips, and there I ended up with Special Shamrock Wraps. In a timely twist of events, just before I put supper on the table my daughter happened to pull out all the holiday stickers onto the floor, and as I helped her return them to the art cabinet, I noticed the shamrock stickers. Booyah! We had impromptu St. Patty's festivities on our hands.

However, I was totally unprepared to answer questions from my 5-year-old at the time about why we were celebrating St. Patrick's Day in the first place. I had to admit that I had no earthly idea how it all began. It likely had something meaningful to do with the Catholic church and Ireland and then it somehow morphed into drinking green beverages, Pinterest shamrock overload, leprechaun jokes and pinching. {Pinching non-green-conformists is, in fact, the ONLY thing I remember from my childhood St. Patrick's Days, which is probably another reason the holiday has never been something I look forward to.}

The one message that I was happy to be able to relay to my kids while we spoke over our four-leaf-clover wraps was related to the concept of "lucky clovers" and the "luck of the Irish." The one St. Patty's Day learning opportunity that I happened to stumble upon that day as I fumbled to outline new definitions and old traditions is that which best describes our family's beliefs: WE ARE NOT LUCKY. . . WE ARE BLESSED. All that we are and all that we have are gifts from God that should be received with grateful hearts.

Now THIS is something that I think we can look forward to celebrating year after year!

What do you and yours do for St. Patrick's Day? I'd love to hear in the comments what this holiday means for you!