St. Patrick’s Day is a great holiday for gathering with friends, eating foreign foods, and of course wearing green, but what else can you do? The following is a look at some fun St. Patrick’s Day activities.
One of the best activities for St. Patrick’s Day is a throw back to Ireland. You can participate in some of the classic gaelic games, created centuries ago to determine who the best fighters were, testing their accuracy, strength, endurance, and agility. These are most commonly known today as Highland games, and can be a lot of fun to help your family get in the spirit of the Emerald Isle and this holiday.
One such game is called Heave Ho, or hay sack toss. For this game you are going to traditionally get a pitchfork and a pile of hay, and you string a wire, and see who can toss the bundle of hay over the most times out of ten. Of course today most of us don’t own pitchforks and hay lofts, so instead, make a miniature version you can do at home by using shreds of newspaper, and putting them in a brown paper lunch sack, to create your hay packets. Then string a clothes line, and instead of a pitch fork, use a spatula. You will laugh and have a blast throwing the newspaper over the line, and will give you a fun glimpse at some traditional activities for the holidays and feasts.
Another great highland type game is the caber toss. This is where someone hoists a 20-foot pole that weighs close to 120 pounds, onto their shoulder and then flips it to try and get the end to point at 12 or noon. For this game, you probably do not have a twenty foot pole, so instead, pick up a pencil, and stand with your feet at 6 o clock, and then flip the unsharpened pencil to see who gets it to land closest to twelve o clock.
Other fun activities for St. Patrick’s Day include a cook off. There are all kinds of ways to cook the traditional St. Patrick’s Day fare of corned beef and cabbage, so you can have a cook off to see who creates the tastiest version.
For small children it can be fun to make St. Patrick’s Day themed crafts such as little Leprechauns, or paint pots that they can fill with gold candies. They can make belts, or top hats to wear for fun, or paint shamrocks on their faces with green face paint.
If you want to have a fun St. Patrick’s Day, consider activities you enjoy regularly, and give them a St. Patrick’s Day twist. For example, you can go bowling, and the winner gets a pot of gold, or you can watch a movie, but watch Darbie O’gill and the Little People. You will be sure to have fun if you keep things green, leprechaun, shamrock, and pots of gold themed.