Saint Patrick's Day Family Tradition

Family traditions - something to rejoice about, record and hope to remember!  I want to share our St. Patrick's Day tradition.  This March holiday is on Monday this year (2014) so we decided to celebrate a day earlier so our daughter did not miss out on our family fun before ending her spring break and returning to college.  I'm not sure when we started this, but we have been eating green on St. Patty's day for a long while.  This is our family tradition, to prepare and eat green foods.  For our Sunday St. Patty's Day dinner we had roast beef and gravy, and these two items were not green.  But we did enjoy green grapes; green jell-o with fruit in sundae dishes; green rolls; green milk; asparagus; green mashed potatoes; and dessert was green ice cream with mashed thin mint cookies (Girl Scout cookies, of course).  Pretty nutritious, very delicious, and lots of fun!  I try to get the whole family involved in the preparation.  So a few days before, I ask each of them what they would to like eat and would be willing to prepare for the meal that is green.  I gather a list and then I know what items need to be purchased from the store and need to be on hand and ready for preparation.  Our dinner table is decorated festively with green plates and napkins.  Along with our clover garland, this year we even had sprinkled down the center of the table green Hershey kisses and green M&M's.  This was easy to do, because after Christmas I separated our Hershey kisses and M&M's and used the red and silver kisses along with the red M&Ms for Valentine's Day.  All the green treats were stashed away for St. Patty's Day.  Does my family know much about why the holiday is celebrated Probably not, I don't really know.  But they do know our family will gather around the table and have a big, some-what fancy, green meal together.

Tonight I also want to remember that as our meal was ending and dessert was being prepared, our children were happily singing songs they remembered from music they sang and listened to as youngsters.  It was great to hear them singing together and remembering, laughing and getting along. Now that's something else to rejoice in and remember.  :)

In years past, the kids have woken up to green water in the toilet; lucky love notes on the mirror; green milk in the refrigerator; we've eaten Lucky Charms for breakfast; and school lunches have been packed with green items.  Which have included green apples, green wrapped granola bar, green grapes, a juice box with green labeling, and celery sticks or cucumber slices.  

I know that if I ever want to do more to make this holiday fun, I have found a creative and very helpful website, thedatingdivas.com. They have St. Patrick's Day all planned - ideas, printables, and great suggestions to make the day memorable.  Always a wonderful holiday resource!