St. Patrick's Day and Other Holidays by Bonnie Le Hamilton

In four days, it will be St. Patrick’s Day. I’m also informed, thanks to social media, that the holy periods of Lent and Ramadan are going on right now, with Palm Sunday on the 24^th and Easter on the 31^st.

All of this got me thinking about holiday traditions and which ones we, or our characters, follow. I know I have touched on traditions concerning big holidays like Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but what about the others?

I don’t know about schools today, but when I was a kid, St. Patrick’s Day was a big deal, mostly because of pinching anyone not wearing green. I have previously mentioned my cousin who was vicious with his pinches back then.

Anyway, on St. Patrick’s Day, I always try to remember to wear green.

In my husband’s family, their tradition was to have corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day, which is something my family never did, but now I do it every year. This year as usual you will find me at my sister-in-law’s place having corned beef and cabbage.

When it comes to Ramadan, of course, we don’t celebrate that, but we also never celebrated Lent. Growing up, Lent was just lighting a candle on each of the four Sundays before Easter, and the one we lit on Easter was white while the rest were green.

I was an adult before I learned some people give up stuff during Lent, but that is as far as it goes for me. Now Easter is a big deal. It's as big as Christmas really. But even still, it isn’t like it was when we were kids and everyone showed up at church in their new spring outfits complete with hats, gloves, and little purses. I hated those hats.

We still dress up for Easter, but then we try to dress up for every Sabbath day. Easter is on Sunday.

Other Easter traditions are the Easter egg hunt and Easter baskets, and way too much candy!

In our church, it is more about reading about the Resurrection of Christ than all those treats, just like we try to make Christmas more about the birth of Christ. However, I admit it is harder to find décor about the Resurrection of Christ than it is to find décor depicting the birth of Christ. Explaining why I have so many Nativities and only one “He is Risen” knickknack. I wish I had more. Though I do have a couple Gethsemane statues. Gethsemane had to happen before the tomb could be found empty! That’s important too.

But what about in our stories? Do we ever use some of these holidays in them?

I know I have used April Fool’s Day at least once, which is the day after Easter this year, but I don’t think I’ve ever done much about St. Patrick’s Day. Have you?

As far as stories go, I know Blue Bloods usually does something about St. Patrick’s Day, but that is a bigger deal in New York or Chicago. Wasn’t it the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade that The Fugitive got lost in?

But how about in small-town America? What kind of things would they do?

I know we never had a parade on St. Patrick’s Day, but it is usually still pretty cold on St. Patrick’s Day, I’m surprised New York and Chicago have parades for it, then again, New York has their big parade on Thanksgiving every year, which is pretty darn cold.

Around here, it is normally a white Thanksgiving.

Though if you are making up a town, or using a small town that never did much for the holiday, what would that be?

Or would it be mentioned at all?

I’m sure in Sci-Fi the likelihood of them celebrating St. Patrick’s Day is pretty slim, the same in Fantasy, but what holidays would they celebrate? What would that look like? What is the tradition for it? Is the tradition different for separate groups?

I should consider this for my Sci-Fi because what sort of culture doesn’t have holidays? For my speculative fiction, I don’t think any of our holidays are mentioned specifically, but it does occur in late spring, right before high school graduation for some of the characters. And that is in the story.

But most of what I write is romance, and I have no idea why I don’t mention St. Patrick’s Day in any of them. I clearly could have in the one where I mention April Fool’s Day because the female lead’s little brothers would make a big deal out of that too! And I do not know why I didn’t at least mention it in passing.

Anyway, happy writing everyone! And Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Luck of the Irish to ye! St. Patrick’s Day is this Saturday, and thinking about it beings to my mind my strongest memory of the holiday.

Way back in fourth grade, a week or so before it, word started going around our school that only those of Irish decent needed to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day; everyone else should wear yellow.

Of course, being as it was in fourth grade, we all already knew the “punishment” for not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day, but this tale about wearing yellow including that a person should be punished for wearing green if they weren’t Irish.

Now I knew I had at least some Irish blood in me because my maternal grandmother’s maiden name was of Irish origin, but come St. Patrick’s Day it dawned on me I didn’t have anything green in my wardrobe. For that matter I didn’t have anything yellow. Let’s face it, my favorite colors are red, white, and blue – guess what was in my wardrobe?

My mother helped me fashion a shamrock out of green construction paper and pinned it to my shirt. Though being as spring had not yet sprung, when I entered school that day my coat was covering my shamrock and my cousin, who was in the same grade as I was, noting all the blue I was wearing, promptly slugged me in the arm.

I opened my coat and prepared to slug him back, but he stepped away from me insisting that as we were not Irish. I reminded him of our shared grandmother’s maiden name then got him once of hitting me and a second time for wearing yellow. His sister, just a year younger than him, had been wise enough to wear both yellow and green.

But that is the only year I heard anyone, besides myself, say anything about not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. And, of course, I do have Irish blood, so after that, I have managed to have something green to wear for St. Patrick’s Day other than a construction paper shamrock.

Only thing is, after marriage, and not having any kids, I’ve lived through quite a few St. Patrick’s Day’s where the only face to face contact I’ve had was with Tom.

Once Tom come home from work and asked me why I didn’t remind him to wear green. “Uh, let’s see, because I was asleep when you left.” I also tried to inform him that I forgot and wasn’t wearing green either. Tom was quick to point out that my flower covered dress had green leaves. That doesn’t mean I remembered.

And then there was last year. I had nowhere to go; I never once stepped out my front door, nor did anyone visit me, and with Tom now gone, I didn’t see anyone, but I did wear green; I guess it’s just part of who I am.

And it makes me wonder why I’ve yet to write a scene involving St. Patrick’s Day. I know I have stuff involving Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even New Year’s, but not St. Patrick’s Day.aH I also have one with April Fool’s day, and I don't like that holiday.

How about you? What holidays do you have in your stories? And which don’t you have? And why?

Happy writing everyone! 😊