And no, not by drinking green beer under a leprechaun poster! Years ago I found a lovely picture book about St. Patrick written and illustrated by one of our favs, Tomie de Paolo. Back in the early homeschooling days, we cut out potatoes into stamps with three leaf clovers and celtic cross. We made a green and gold tablecloth out of an old white sheet. Said tablecloth is still in existence, but we forgot to use it this year. Every year we would invite stacks of little friends over for a big tea party, with cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, fruit, of course loads of homemade soda bread and jam, the special porcelain tea cups, followed by family dinner of corned beef and cabbage. Every year we would read aloud the story of St. Patrick, one of our heroes, and be grateful for his life.
One year we even took our feast and table cloth with us to Big Bend National Park, all the way from Ft. Worth, our home at the time, and celebrated in the Chisos Mountains, savoring our hot tea in the cool spring mountain air.
The past few years we have had kids go different directions and to tell the truth, it always felt a bit painful as we tried to reinvent this tradition.
This year, I was busy at work when I realized I forgot to buy corned beef. Never mind. We had soda bread. We took it and a bunch of fresh brussels sprouts to mom and dad's place. No tablecloth...But we sauteed cabbage with onions and bacon, probably more irish than corned beef anyway! Rose went to the garden with Dad and they picked a huge bowl of kale which I sauteed with garlic and olive oil. A bunch of buttery leaf lettuce and ruby red radishes for salad. We sat at the table, thankful, plates filled with nutritious, beautiful green stuff, grown and prepared with love.
What more could we wish for?
Seemed pretty awesome to me. But for goodness sake! Next year, please help me remember to carry over the tablecloth!!! And for Daddy and Thomas's sake, we had better cook some potatoes!
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