Easy Festive Traditions You Can Try For St. Patrick’s Day [Episode 26]

[00:00:53] Heidi: Hey there friends. Welcome back to the holiday headstart podcast. Today we are sharing a roundup of St. Patrick’s day ideas.

 

Some of these are traditions that Emily and I love, and some of these are fun ideas that we have gleaned from other people.

 

[00:01:05] Emily: What I love about celebrating smaller holidays like St. Patrick’s Day is that the expectations are so low. And that means you can lean into the fun without too many headaches or expectations that it’s going to be some big spectacular thing.

 

I like doing something where anything you do feels like a bonus. Yeah, St.

 

[00:01:24] Heidi: Patrick’s Day is definitely that. Anything you want to do is fun and great and above and beyond. I think there’s a ton of messaging about how Thanksgiving and Christmas should look, but you know, when you come in with St.

 

Patrick’s day, there are no expectations. There’s no worry about doing it right. We’re

 

[00:01:41] Emily: just having fun. So to help with that fun, we’ve rounded up just a few suggestions to add a little Blarney to your March 17th.

 

[00:01:49] Heidi: Get on my soapbox here for a minute. I was looking online for some suggestions and I came across multiple blog posts that were promising things like 10 fun St.

 

Patrick’s day traditions. Multiple blog posts keep this in mind and when I checked out their list, it was things like watch a movie, read a book, wear green.

 

[00:02:09] Emily: What a novel idea for St. Patrick’s Day.

 

[00:02:12] Heidi: And you know, we love the holiday movies and. I have a real problem buying holiday books, but I don’t think anyone needed a list to remind you to do that.

 

So no, let’s see what we can do to make St. Patrick’s day have its own unique flair.

 

[00:02:27] Emily: And as always at the holiday headstart, the pressure is not to do more. There are lots of benefits that come from traditions, but that doesn’t mean you need a tradition for every holiday and you definitely don’t need to adopt every tradition that sounds fun.

 

[00:02:40] Heidi: But if you are going to the effort to do something festive. You want that something to add a little sparkle to the day. So let’s share some things that we’ve enjoyed doing over the years and maybe some ideas that are brand new to all of us. We had some fun St. Patrick’s day traditions growing up that Emily, I know you have passed on to your kids.

 

[00:02:57] Emily: We get a little visit from a leprechaun friend. Now, I want to preface this by saying, some people like to do this and the leprechaun comes and makes mischief at your house or your classroom. that’s not how I roll. So, and this is not how we did it when we were kids.

 

I do it pretty close to what we had as kids, which is just, there’s some leprechaun footprints that appear overnight and they lead to a little pot of gold. So, I have a little cauldron. Shaped soup bowl that actually is from Halloween. We had one when we were kids that, that was like, how do I describe it?

 

Heidi, the one we had,

 

[00:03:35] Heidi: I remember looking it up once it was from a Dutch oven company, but it looks like a little tiny, teeny, tiny pot of gold.

 

[00:03:41] Emily: I know it’s so cute. And I actually think it’s in my house somewhere. And I don’t know where, because I asked mom about it when she’s like, I gave it to you. I’m like, Oh, so hopefully that turns up someday.

 

But in the meantime, I have these old, crate and barrel which is cauldron shaped bowls. I use one of those. And I put. Individually wrapped Rolos in there because those are wrapped in gold and then the miniature Reese’s peanut butter cups that are also wrapped in gold go in there and then gold coins.

 

If I see them, sometimes those are hard to easily find at the store and they’re pricey because you have to buy a whole bunch. Yes, they are pricey. That’s why I only put in a few if I do that. And that is it. That is that’s pretty much the extent of the tradition. I also usually have a box of lucky charms next to it, but That’s just because it’s cute.

 

My kids are not even big cereal eaters, but it’s easy. It’s simple. When we were kids, the leprechaun footprints were cut out of green construction paper and they led from our bedroom. Door to the pot of gold, correct? Heidi. Isn’t that what you remember? Like I remember walking down the hall trying to walk on a little.

 

Yes. Now I did it that way for a while, but one of my kids found little footprints in a drawer after that. So I’m like, well, I need to switch this up. And also, I don’t know. It’s cute, but the kids were much more like, I can pick this footprint up, which is funny because I don’t remember like having an issue with that as a no, it was just like, Oh, who cares?

 

Like it’s so cute. I don’t know. My kids are realists apparently. So I switched to, and this is actually my tip because it is much, much easier, which is I switched to leprechaun footprint stickers that I got off of Amazon and you know, they’re big enough to look like teeny little. Boot prints and they have like little shamrock shapes in the imprint of the shoe print.

 

And I just do a small path of them because my kids sleep upstairs. It’s a very far distance. I would have to do a lot of footprints to get to the gold if I was going to do that. So I just do it from our back patio door to the kitchen island. So not very far at all. and you can buy , The footprints in bulk, and it’s just so much easier to slap on a sticker and they come off easily to off of the floor and the side of the kitchen island, without damaging any of the paint or the floor.

 

[00:06:12] Heidi: That’s so smart

 

because I remember, St. Patrick’s day eves in the past, or you’d be up late trying to cut out a bunch of little paper.

 

[00:06:20] Emily: Oh, yes. I’d go grab one of the kids shoes as a model, you know, just. Cutting out a whole bunch of footprints.

 

It’s so much simpler now knowing that I’ve got footprints. I can slap on the ground and I have a habit every year of looking at how many stickers I have left and deciding if I have enough for next year Now so that I order more right then For next year, if I’m not going to have enough, so, so far, I’ve never found myself without them.

 

Knock on wood,

 

[00:06:50] Heidi: that’s so smart. Cause I think that’s one of those things where you’re like, Oh yeah, I bought that. I’ve got them. And then you get them out the next March

 

and you’re like, Oh, I have three. Yeah. Yes.

 

[00:06:58] Emily: And that is not something you want to discover on the night that you know, do it. So those were traditions we adopted from our mom.

 

She did also make a more Irish dinner. I do not do that because my kids are no fun. They don’t appreciate any good food. So no, I don’t make colcannon, which is what we used to have.

 

[00:07:18] Heidi: Well, I don’t feel like I appreciated it either. So colcannon is mashed potatoes, bacon, and cabbage. And I do like all three of those things probably hit or miss as a kid, but I do like all three of those things, but something about it being all mixed together.

 

I really don’t enjoy it.

 

[00:07:34] Emily: Oh, you still don’t. I do like it, but that’s funny. I do like it. I think I’ve always liked it. I don’t know that I was like super psyched about it as a kid, but I’ve always liked it. And we did used to have a yummy drink though. And I have never done this because I’ve had a hard time finding the green sherbet that you need. Heidi, tell us about the punch mom used to make.

 

[00:07:53] Heidi: So it

 

was pretty straightforward. The nice thing about a punch is you could just throw everything together. No true story. So I think it’s Sprite or 7 Up, pineapple juice and lime green sherbet. And it was lovely and green and tasty. We did much

 

[00:08:10] Emily: more excited about that than the coal cannon, I’m sure. But it was tasty. And I, yeah, I’ve never done that with my kids because I have so much trouble finding that lime green sherbet, but I’ll have to keep my eye out.

 

Maybe I’ll find some this year.

 

I

 

[00:08:24] Heidi: do an adapted version for our Grinch dinner. It doesn’t have the pineapple juice because I’m allergic now, but, I get either. There’s green Hawaiian punch, but I can only find it at Walmart or I get a green Kool Aid instead of the juice and then Sprite. And then I just do a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream to give it the foamy. Yeah. Yes. And, but then add in half a can of lemonade concentrate. Frozen lemonade concentrate to give it the like zing from the lime. So I feel like it’s good and

 

the kids do like it. So I’ll have to think about that too. Been a pretty good substitute.

 

I wonder what I could serve with it for dinner that they would actually eat.

 

See a cute idea from our friend Melissa at the So Festive blog and she does Hawaiian haystacks. I think she calls them Irish haystacks. So it’s basically just rice and shredded chicken. And gravy, which I think is just like cream of chicken soup.

 

And then you can put all kinds of different toppings on it. Chow mein noodles. Those crunchy

 

[00:09:25] Emily: chow mein

 

[00:09:25] Heidi: noodles. I love it so much. Veggies

 

[00:09:27] Emily: and sliced almonds. But I like the idea of like rainbow veggies. That’s such a good idea. Yes, so that’s what

 

[00:09:32] Heidi: Melissa did. And her, she said it out. It’s so cute on her blog.

 

We’ll put a link in the show notes if you want to see it. So she had a topping for each color. I think she dyed the rice green. Which made it even more fun if you’ve got kids with aversions to colors, that might not work, but

 

[00:09:51] Emily: I’m the one with aversions to colors. I don’t like my food to be dyed, but my kids would probably get a kick out of that.

 

[00:09:56] Heidi: And I can’t remember what she did for blue. I should have double checked, but you know, you could have red peppers or tomatoes. I really like tomatoes on white haystacks or, you know, shredded cheese or red peppers. Or orange peppers and pineapple or, you know, there’s so many different toppings you could do to make a

 

[00:10:13] Emily: pretty rainbow.

 

Okay. Maybe we’ll try it this year. I’m not convinced they would put much on their chicken and rice, but maybe they would, I think it would be worth a try. It would be cute anyway. So we’ll try it and next year I’ll report back. That’ll be a

 

[00:10:27] Heidi: fun experiment.

 

[00:10:29] Emily: Do

 

[00:10:29] Heidi: you have any other ideas, Heidi?

 

Well, one idea that I just came up with recently, so we’ll have to try it out again with your kids this year and see how it goes, is, so if you’ve seen, around the holidays, there’s often a game that’s like a dice game for candy, where you just have like a pile of candy in the middle, then you roll a die and whatever you get, you either take some candy or put it back.

 

And I was thinking that that could be really fun for St. Patrick’s day. So I made a cute pot of gold printout so you could put that in the middle of your table and that’s your pot of gold that they’re taking the candy from. Because I know when you’re buying that. St. Patrick’s Day morning candy.

 

You have to buy the whole bag. Yes. And you always end up with leftovers. I remember the joy of that as a kid finding those in the back of the pantry because only so many would fit in the bowl, but right now this would be a good way to use that up or. Maybe we could throw in some Skittles and Starburst and make it a rainbow too.

 

[00:11:25] Emily: Yes. I think my kids are going to be really into this. And also the printable is very cute. So thank you. I had fun

 

[00:11:32] Heidi: making it

 

[00:11:33] Emily: and we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. We are starting a new little Etsy shop where you can get some printables that we’re creating like this one. Yes. So hopefully

 

[00:11:43] Heidi: that is a fun game to play.

 

And then another idea I had was. So we do Rudolph noses in December, and this is my kind of baking, it’s a pretzel, a rolo, and a red M& M. That is it. So you just like lay out a sheet pan, cover it, like tile it with little square pretzels, put a rolo on each one, pop it in the oven for, you know, about three minutes.

 

Once the rolo starts to look a little melty, you pull it out, you put a red M& M on top

 

What I like about this recipe, I’m doing air quotes. You can’t see that, but I’m doing air quotes. What I like about this recipe is it has so many steps that are kid friendly, so you can kind of just get everyone involved. Some kids are unwrapping the Rolos.

 

[00:12:22] Heidi: Some people are sorting out the M& Ms by color. Some people can, you know, put. The pretzels on the pan and all of that. But I saw a cute St. Patrick’s Day version where instead of the square pretzels, you just use the regular kind of loopy curvy pretzels and you arrange three pretzels, so it kind of looks like a shamrock.

 

And put a, gotta kind of balance the Rolo in the middle, put it in the oven, let the Rolo get a tiny bit melty, and then you put a green m and m in and now you’ve so cute. You baked these beautiful pretzels, Shamrock.

 

[00:12:55] Emily: Okay, I saw this on Instagram. I’m sure it’s the same reel you’re talking about. My only thought is, I think I would want to find mini pretzels.

 

Because I felt like the chocolate to pretzel ratio was off, even though it looked adorable. Like once you bite into one pretzel, it’s gonna fall apart.

 

[00:13:11] Heidi: Yes, I have. And you

 

[00:13:12] Emily: didn’t even get the Rolo in your bite. So that’s my thought. I think we should see if we can find mini pretzels. I

 

[00:13:17] Heidi: had that exact same thought.

 

That’s too much pretzel and not enough chocolate. So either we need bigger Rolos

 

[00:13:24] Emily: or smaller pretzels.

 

[00:13:26] Heidi: And yeah, we can melt chocolate. That is the level of our baking ability.

 

[00:13:30] Emily: But speaking of our friend Melissa,

 

[00:13:33] Heidi: she does like seven layer, no, I think it’s a 14 layer jello. So it’s a rainbow.

 

[00:13:39] Emily: I’ve done it once. I did a rainbow birthday party for my oldest child’s first birthday. I did it for the guests for that. Had these tall shot glasses that were so cute and I layered.

 

The different rainbow color jello and in between I had like custard because it was like something that mom had made before where you layer the jello. Yeah. It’s like a, like a whipped cream type layer, something like that. I can’t even remember. It was so much work to like do that many layers and they’re teeny tiny in this little shot glass.

 

It was freaking adorable, but I will never make them again because it was so much work. Hours and hours. I guess if you did a big container of them instead of a bunch of tiny individual ones, it would be less work.

 

Well, we would love to hear your St. Patrick’s Day ideas. Please come and connect with us on Instagram at the Holiday Head Start.

 

Now it’s time for Get a Head Start Tip. Each week, we leave you with a small, actionable tip to help you get started on your holiday planning. This week’s get ahead, start tip is make your Easter plans. Tell us more about that, Heidi.

 

[00:14:43] Heidi: Okay. Well, I admit this isn’t a tip as much as it’s a reminder. Easter this year is April 20th, which I was surprised to learn is not even as late as Easter can go.

 

In 2038, just a few short years away, Easter is going to land on April 25th. Wow. But, you know, we’ve got a few years before I have to worry about that. So let’s get ready for this year’s Easter. And this is just a friendly nudge to remind you to get a move on stocking up for those Easter baskets.

 

An easy way to get your Easter planned is to add it to your holiday tasks in March, and then just take a few minutes to figure out what needs to happen and what you need to get, and you will be all set well before April 20th.

 

[00:15:22] Emily: Back in episode 23, we mentioned that one thing you can do to get ahead for Christmas is to find hiding spots for any gifts you’ll be buying.

 

Since those hiding spots probably aren’t too full of Christmas gifts yet, hopefully there’s room to stash a few chocolate bunnies in there for a while.

 

[00:15:38] Heidi: And if you need to create a hiding space rather than finding one in your house, just a reminder that moving bags are super handy for this task.

 

They don’t look like anything exciting. So you can stash gifts and surprises in them and put them in the basement or the garage without attracting too much attention from anyone who might be a little snoopy.

 

[00:15:58] Emily: Yes. And I have already stashed away my Easter goodies that I’ve picked up so far in the moving bags in my garage, but I have to keep an eye on the temperature because it’s been chilly enough and my garage face is North.

 

So it doesn’t get too hot, but have to keep an eye on it. Cause I don’t want my chocolates to melt before I can get them into the baskets.

 

[00:16:17] Heidi: Yeah, by April 20th, who knows how warm it could be. So I’ll just keep an eye.

 

[00:16:21] Emily: Gambling. We like to live on the edge around here. If only I had a basement, I could put it in instead.

 

[00:16:26] Heidi: Okay. Emily, let’s share what we are working on this week. As a way to keep ourselves accountable and give you some ideas of what you can do in advance for your own celebrations, we are sharing what’s on our to do list. Emily, what are you working on? I’m

 

[00:16:39] Emily: starting to prep for my oldest’s 15th birthday at the beginning of April.

 

I know. And she is my hardest kid to buy for. It could be the age maybe all 15 year olds are hard to buy for, but her especially, I just, Oh, it’s hard. So got to get a jump on that early. What are you working on, Heidi?

 

[00:16:58] Heidi: Well, related to that, I need to get that 15 year old birthday present. So that is my main task.

 

[00:17:05] Emily: To wrap up the show. We’re sharing our nice lists. Heidi, what has made it on your nice list this week?

 

[00:17:11] Heidi: I am putting blue air, air purifiers on my nice list. Last spring. My hay fever got so bad I was having to wear masks just so I could breathe inside the house. I didn’t even try to leave the house So I bought three air purifiers and I think they have made a really big difference I have two from blue air and one from shark and I like both models but I have had more headaches from the shark one kind of just like Quitting working randomly and I have to reboot everything, but the downside with the blue air is you do have to replace the filters every six months and the shark one supposedly last five years.

 

I’m only one year in, so who knows, but that is the trade off. However, it has been worth the expense all around. Just to be able to breathe. So I will take that.

 

[00:17:57] Emily: Yeah. I have a couple of those of the blue air ones. I’m bummed to hear the shark one. Hasn’t been as good. I was hoping that would be a good new one for me.

 

It’s

 

[00:18:05] Heidi: fine. And it does a bigger room the blue air was more expensive for a unit that could do such a big room,

 

[00:18:12] Emily: but it’s just

 

[00:18:12] Heidi: like the, I’m always having to kind of like re fiddle, reset

 

[00:18:15] Emily: the filters

 

[00:18:16] Heidi: and then it works fine, but I have to

 

[00:18:18] Emily: be on top of it. Oh, that is really annoying.

 

I need to switch out the filters in mine. I think I have one that runs all the time in my room and because it runs all the time, I tend to forget about it. It’s like kind of behind my door during the day, so I just don’t even notice it. So I’m guaranteed that one needs a new filter. And then my downstairs one hasn’t been on in months because it needs a new filter and they are not cheap.

 

So yeah, I just ordered new ones. And got the wrong size. So I got it ordered again. Oh, goody.

 

[00:18:45] Heidi: Okay. Emily, what made it on your nice list this week?

 

[00:18:48] Emily: I’m putting the prequel skin utility ointment on my list.

 

So it’s kind of similar to aquifer. So think of that kind of texture, but it’s like a little lighter and less sticky. So I use it when I’m like layering on, on my chapped lips, the way that Sharon from Sharon says, so talks about making a moisture sandwich. I like to use that as my last.

 

Step. And I, it’s really good for irritation that I get around my eyes and nose, like especially during allergy season. I feel like this is very soothing to put on that kind of skin irritation.

 

[00:19:22] Heidi: Oh, well that’s good. I’m going to have to stock up on that. Yep. They sell it at target. I’ll put it in condition notes.

 

Perfect. That’s it for today’s episode. Add some festive sparkle to your St. Patrick’s day and remember to get started on your plans for Easter.

 

 

Thanks for tuning in today. Use this week to get a head start on planning for what’s ahead. And remember, don’t get it perfect, get it going. Come follow along on Instagram at theholidayheadstart. We would love to hear from you. If you liked this episode, head to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. We’ll see you here next week.