Due to a miscommunication on my part, I found myself without any St. Patrick's Day picture books the day before our weekly homeschool co-op. I sent out texts to most of my local friends asking if they had related books that I could borrow. "No," came the consistent replies, with many adding, "we don't really celebrate that holiday."
"What?!" my brain struggled to understand, "not celebrate St. Patrick's Day??"
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| Leprechaun invasion at co-op |
But then I remembered. Most people weren't fed a steady diet of Irish stories, jokes, accents, and songs from infancy. Most people don't have siblings with names like, "Sean," and "Colleen," and "Ian," and "Daniel." Most people's own names don't mean 'Ireland.' For most people, I guess St. Patrick's Day could be just some obscure holiday where you run the unpleasant risk of getting pinched.
But not for us.
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My dad wasn't big on holidays. Especially not the "important" ones like Christmas and Thanksgiving. We'd joke with him about being such a "Bah Humbug," but our jests were deeply rooted in truth.
When March 17th, rolled around however, Dad lost all traces of cynicism. A holiday about Ireland! What could possibly be better? He would break out his Irish accent and use the Day as an excuse to tell some of his favorite Irish tales.
As a missionary in Belfast during the height of the IRA struggles, he frequently encountered antagonism and threats of violence from both sides of the conflict. Often, he and his companions would be greeted on the streets with the dangerous question, "Are ye Protestant or are ye Catholic?"
To which they would carefully respond, "We're Mormon."
After a moment of hesitation, the accosters would fire back, "Well, are ye a Protestant Mormon or a Catholic Mormon?!"
Considering that Dad always tried to convince us children to wear Protestant orange instead of the more traditional Catholic green, it wasn't too hard to determine on which side his sympathies fell.
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Perhaps not surprisingly, I've found myself thinking about my dad a lot this week and today I decided that from now on, this is when I'll focus on my Dad and celebrate his life. From now on, St. Patrick's Day will be a Big Deal in our home, in honor of my dad. I'll use the opportunity to tell my kids his stories and remind them of how much he loved them. I'll encourage them to wear orange, and teach them Papa's favorite Irish songs and jokes (well, the appropriate ones at least).
I'll add to our current traditions (which mostly involves lots of green food) and try to ensure that St. Patrick's Day is a fun and meaningful holiday for my kids - one that they look forward to all year - because it's something their Papa loved.
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| Aubree helped prepare the dinner menu: broccoli-potato soup, green rolls, green jello, and green pudding pie. |
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| Even Graham gets green grub |
2 comments:
Make that a GREEN elephant. I love your new tradition. One of the things that Dad wanted to do was write down his stories. He did not have the time to do this. We all heard so many of them over and over again, but I am already struggling to remember them all. As you go along, will you (and everyone else) please write down Dad's stories so we have them? He did love Ireland and the Irish people. His favorite were the children. Erin go Braugh! Ireland forever!
What a great post. Your Dad would be proud.
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