Our Favorite St. Patrick's Day Traditions!

St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my favorite holidays as a kid, because I did Irish Step Dancing and it was a busy season for us. As a Mom, I have so much fun sharing my love of all things Irish with my kids on this holiday and making it fun for them.

As with all holidays, the best traditions are the ones that everyone in the family loves--and that includes Mom! Lean into your strengths and what makes you happy and that happiness will trickle down to the kids. And if holidays like St. Patrick's Day aren't something you want to celebrate, then don't.

Today, I am sharing some of our favorite traditions for the holiday.

Fun Green Clothes

Obviously, we share in the green clothes tradition, although I have to admit I hate the pinching tradition of St. Patrick's Day. I love to buy my kids fun St. Patrick's Day clothes and they have some knee length socks we pull out every year as well.

Scavenger Hunt with Gold Coins

This is probably my kids' favorite tradition. I put together a really simple scavenger hunt around the house, with clues like "I keep things cold" for the refrigerator. At the end of the scavenger hunt, they find chocolate gold coins.

Irish Step Dancing

Over the years, I have loved teaching my kids some Irish Step Dancing and we always review on St. Patrick's Day. Then we can dance together!

Watch Riverdance

I also have always loved the show Riverdance and love sharing it with my kids. Sometimes we watch the whole thing, sometimes I find my favorite clips on YouTube to show them. They love to dance along, after learning Irish dance themselves.

Read Themed Books

We are a big book family, so of course a big part of the holiday is reading St. Patrick's Day themed picture books. We own some, get some from the library, and watch videos online of people reading books we don't own aloud.

Learn the History of the Holiday

We have a book that shares a lot of the history of the holiday and we love watching the Homeschool Pop video (we love his videos in general and watch them for all the smaller and bigger holidays).

Setting a Trap

I actually don't do this tradition with my kids, but they love to do it every year—they set a trap for a leprachaun. Sometimes I lean into and get them a worksheet about setting traps, but they spearhead it and try every year. They have yet to succeed in catching one.

Green Food for Dinner

I love to do green food for our dinner--we just take whatever we are having for dinner and turn it green. We've done green eggs and pancakes, green mashed potatoes, this year we are doing green stroganoff. I add in green vegetables (like cabbage and broccoli) and this year we're doing dinner rolls with green sprinkles on top. Top it off with a festive dessert (green rice krispie treats or cupcakes with green sprinkles) and you have a super easy festive evening together!

Those are our favorite traditions for St. Patrick's Day! What about you? Do you do anything to celebrate this holiday? What are your favorite traditions around smaller holidays?