It’s Saint Patrick’s Day and no, a damn leprechaun didn’t visit our house and leave green piss in our toilet or give the kids presents or candy or pots filled with fool’s gold (the thing my 7-year-old said was supposed to happen). I didn’t bake a green cake, dye the kids’ milk green, make corned beef and cabbage or bring the family to an Irish pub for a Guinness.
We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in our own quiet way, some Celtic music over breakfast sandwiches and a Shamrock tattoo on my oldest son’s cheek for his hockey game.
I don’t begrudge anyone their celebrations or traditions. At all. I am the first to admit that I LOVE making a big deal about holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, even Easter (though I have no idea why I buy the kids cheap toys and hide eggs to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection): I love to do little things for the kids to make the day special.
But when did St. Patrick’s Day become another one of those holidays?
“I wish the leprechaun had come to visit our house,” my 7-year-old lamented St. Patrick’s Day morning. “Some of my friends were getting fool’s gold. That’s what I want.”
“Sorry,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
I was caught between feeling guilty (surprise, surprise) and peeved that yet another holiday is becoming (or maybe it always was and I just didn’t know it) about the kids getting something and making it a big to-do.
I am still recovering from last year’s elf on the shelf. Thirty whole days of moving that creepy-looking thing all around the house, trying to bedazzle the kids with new feats of creativity. You just can’t be the lame ass mom who leaves the elf on the mantle or God forbid, A SHELF, every morning. It has to be swinging one-handed from a chandelier or writing a Christmas card in Latin or baking a cake with almond flour and organic eggs. And now I am supposed to pretend a leprechaun visits too?
Before you say anything, I know this would not be a huge, time-consuming endeavor. A little drop of green food coloring in the toilet. Some chocolate-covered coins. But, as one Facebook friend put it: “Since when does EVERY holiday have to be a dog & pony show??”
Because when you think about it, most of them are. Christmas. Easter (“Now, the Easter Bunny is a Jr. version of Santa, according to my kids,” said another Facebook friend). Even Valentine’s Day has become about what we can buy and do for our kids. And lots of times what we can buy and do for our kids turn into Facebook photo ops or Pinterest boards that other moms can look at and see what we buy and do for our kids and feel guilty and think to themselves, “Wow, I should have done that.”
I am definitely not immune to this mentality, and I know that if I look back through my own Facebook timeline there are pictures of present-engulfed Christmas trees, food cut into the shape of hearts and ridiculously decorated party rooms. Because in the end we are all moms who are just trying to make our kids happy. But I’m determined now not to let it totally take me in.
Why can’t St. Patrick’s Day just be about listening to some Celtic music over breakfast and wearing a Shamrock tattoo? In our house, it will.
