St. Patricks' Day in England

A little late, I know, but I don't write on the weekends so I'm playing catch-up. St. Patrick's Day first, unbelievable spring snowstorm next...

Even though we're closer to the place it all began, St. Patrick's Day was celebrated much less here than back in Boston. Thanks to Boston's large number of Irish immigrants there is a rich St. Patrick's Day tradition there. You often see green on passersby, bakeries make holiday cookies, there is a parade, etc. Here, I think we were the only people I saw wearing green, and I didn't see a single
St. Patrick's Day thing in any of our stores. My friend told me that in some of the cities with larger Irish immigrant populations here there are more celebrations, but in our neck of the woods, it was pretty quiet.

But fear not, in honor of the one-fourth of me that's Irish, we celebrated in style!

We had green smoothies, eggs with spinach, and shamrock-shaped homemade Pop Tarts (the kids remembered them from Valentine's Day and insisted we do it again.) We used a Rachelized version of the recipe, which is to say I used soaked whole wheat crust instead of plain. The kids also set the tale greenly (yes, I realize that is not actually a word).


Okay, so some of the Pop Tarts were shamrocks, and some circles. The shamrocks were annoying to put together so I did half and half...In this picture they sort of look like teddy bears, but I assure you they were proper shamrocks.




During breakfast we always change our daily calendar and I want you all to please note the weather here. It is March 17, we no longer live in New England, and snow is happening. More on that in another post...


For dinner we had broccoli, pasta, and alfredo sauce, and we lit our green candles. We turned off all the lights because the kids wanted to experience what it would have been like to live in our cottage without electricity. (Which would only have been a few decades ago, since electricity didn't make it here until after WWII.) Sorry for the dark picture, but in real life the ambience was pretty great.


In between breakfast and dinner we went to Bourton-on-the-Water to meet some friends and check out a new library and the Model Railway Museum. We also wore green. We made it back safely before the snow really picked up, and we spent the next day snowed in!

We had a good day overall, especially since I managed to make it all the way through a properly celebrated holiday without getting sick halfway. (See Valentine's Day for full story.)

Maybe next year we'll pop over to Ireland for a proper celebration!

Comments

  1. You guys know how to celebrate! 😊

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    Replies
    1. Well, the kids know how, and I acquiesce to their demands with varying degrees of grace and good humor :)

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