Each year on March 17th, we celebrate Irish culture on St. Patrick’s Day named for the patron saint of Ireland. St. Patrick is credited for escaping slavery and bringing Christianity to Ireland. The most wide spread legend being that St. Patrick used the Irish clover, the shamrock, to explain the Holy Trinity. The celebration of St. Patrick’s Day as a holiday has been observed for over 1,000 years in Ireland and around the world.
On our last trip to Ireland, I was honored to be able to visit the oldest Quaker graveyard in Ireland where my ancestors are buried. Ann Rae was my 10th great-grandmother who was buried in Ireland in 1671. (It’s quite a fascinating lineage and one that I will share in more detail in a separate post!)
So, if you’re as curious as I was, you have one pressing question – when did St. Patrick’s Day become a greentastic, drinking holiday? Great question!
St. Patrick’s Day falls during the Christian season of Lent, and throughout the history of the holiday the Lenton prohibitions of meat and alcohol were waived. In other words, it has always been a holiday for drink and feast.
As for the tradition of wearing green? The original color of St. Patrick’s Day was actually blue. The story evolves once the tradition grew in the United States, Americans began wearing more and more green to represent shamrocks and the Emerald Isle. The evolved legend is that the color green makes you invisible to Leprechauns, if you are not wearing green the Leprechauns will see you and pinch you.
In honor of Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day, we found this wonderful story book by Adam Wallace and Andy Elkerton and matching craft book by Larissa Juliano!
The paring of these two books is so fanciful. The adorable story of how to catch a leprechaun and the craft book How To Build A Leprechaun Trap was so fun. As you can see, the crafts also quickly turned into a chalk in the yard bonanza, but go where your creativity leads you my dear!
From baking recipes and quick, easy crafts (5-15 minutes) to more complicated Leprechaun traps. There is definitely enough in this little book to keep you occupied this coming week!
One recipe that my daughter and I love baking together is Irish Soda Bread. It is an easy and delicious recipe that my daughter can bake almost entirely on her own. There is a recipe in the craft book, and you can see my previous post on various Irish Soda Bread recipes here.
The great thing is that you can get these New York Times bestseller books on Amazon Prime and be crafting in no time! Here are the direct product links for easy access:
How to Build a Leprechaun Trap
This product review was done in collaboration with Sourcebooks. While this is a sponsored post the product review and opinions are my own. I only work with brands and companies that provide products that I have tried and/or tested personally and will always provide my true and honest opinion.
Founder of Shoulders With Freckles and SUMMERSKIN, as well as a Pharmacist, Melanoma Survivor & Mom.
