20 Days of Chill - All for me Grog

Happy Monday and welcome back to 20 Days of Chill - today's prompt is All for me Grog, and I am glad I googled it early on to find out it's a song by The Dubliners, and there's even a Wikipedia  contribution: 

So, Dublin, Ireland, pub, celebrate, have fun, have a beer or three, have even more fun... 

What better opportunity for me than to talk about my favorite holiday that is coming up? Yes, St. Patrick's Day is only two months away!

In Switzerland this Holiday is practically non-existent, except for an excuse for expats for some legit drinking at one of the few Irish pubs that we have around here. (Wow, what a bunch of ex words!)

I came across St. Patrick's Day on the internet when Colin was little (and I'm so glad I have created this tradition at our house!) 

What is it I love so much about March 17? Last year I listed the top ten reasons for Top Ten Thursday:

• Creativity: probably when I'm busiest but happiest planning fun things
• Decorating: a lot of work, but in the end everything looks great!
• Rainbows: so pretty and colourful!
• Leprechauns: trying to catch them, ending up finding out about their mischief. Tomorrow there is going to be a new post about this year's activities.
• Chocolate Mint anything: I know not many Swiss people get it, but I do ;-)
• Gold, so precious!
• Treasure Hunt: always fun to prepare and watch the kids enjoying it.
• Prosecco! What? Beer? No thanks. To each their own!
• Shepherd's Pie. I do cheat a little and use beef instead of lamb. 
• Last but not least: I always love a reason to have a party and have our friends over!

Have a look at what's been happening these past years:

A couple of years ago we made our very own St. Louis Gateway Arch inspired wooden rainbow, complete with a pot of gold!

Our Barbies and Lego Man like to dress up for the occasion.

And so do we! We always wear our sweaters (at least as long as Colin's still fits!)

The kids craft their unique Leprechaun traps

Only the kids? Nah, I made one, too. I called it Leprechaun Hotel, and I used chocate gold coins to lure them. They are smart, though. Did a lot of silly stuff, ate the chocolate and left....

We also made those adorable little Leprechaun Craft. They make their way onto our St. Patrick's Day table every year.

As mentioned, we always get visited by Leprechauns, and they do all kinds of mischief around our house. Turning things green, leaving notes, wrapping books in green paper, removing regular shoelaces and replacing them by green ones, covering the play ice rink with grass, sticking shamrock stickers onto anything... 

One year the walked on our ceiling leaving footprints!?

What's a St. Patrick's Day (Kids) Party without a good treasure hunt? 

• Paint a rainbow
• Count all the leprechauns you can find
• Build a leprechaun trap
• How many gold coins are in the pot of gold?
• What date does St. Patrick's Day take place?
• Count the (empty) beer cans
• What's the capital of Ireland?
• Suppose you were a leprechaun, what pranks would you pull at the kids' house?

Or make the scavenger hunt a find clues kind:

What food do I serve? I'm glad you asked. I know the Irish thing to do is corned beef and cabbage, but I prefer Shepherd's pie, and I usually whip up a quick soda bread, 

but kids love their pasta

and pizza

Sometimes Moms need to keep it healthy for themselves...

... so they may enjoy the real highlight: dessert! Over the course of several years we've had  shamrock cookies, fruit rainbow,  peppermint cheesecake brownies, rainbow sheet cake,  cupcakes, you name it!

I don't know about you, but I certainly got in the mood! How many sleeps till March 17..?

Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day? What do you do? Let me know. 

Now on to find out what my blogger mates came up with.

Tomorrow we have to get real - the topic is going to be "what I learned in school".