The leprechauns are coming! The leprechauns are coming!

St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal in our house. It shouldn’t be, because we’re not Irish, but I don’t know anyone who gets more excited than we do about leprechauns.

About four years ago, we started telling the offspring that if you believe in leprechauns, they’ll visit your house on St. Patrick’s Day. We told them if you’re really fast, you might catch one. Matthew and Lauren immediately built a leprechaun trap.

We always get together with Tom and Amy, and their offspring, to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. I make potato soup and we’ll have some beer (but not the green kind). Matthew, Lauren, Scott, and Grace have a ball because we hide all kinds of St. Patrick’s Day stuff like shamrocks and gold wrapped candy all over the house and pretend it’s the leprechauns who are doing it. We put drops of green food coloring in the toilet and tell all the kids the leprechauns are up to their old mischief again.

It’s kind of getting out of hand, actually. If the leprechauns haven’t left something new for all the kids to find at least every hour, they start to complain and get mad at the leprechauns.

Two years ago, Tom, Amy, Dave, and I, and all the kids, took a spring break vacation to Chicago. We watched them turn the river green and attended the St. Patrick’s Day parade. We had to haul all the St. Patrick’s Day stuff to Chicago and then take turns shuffling the kids between the hotel rooms so one of the adults could turn a toilet green or hide some shamrocks and candy. It was exhausting.

Two days ago, I placed a small piece of shamrock confetti on Matthew’s keyboard. The day after that I sprinkled a couple pieces of shamrock confetti in each of their beds and dropped one piece in their bathroom toilet. They kinda went crazy. They’re convinced there’s a leprechaun named Marie who has been leaving the confetti and they’ve been trying to coax her out by talking into the vent in Matthew’s room. We told them that’s how the leprechauns get in (we’ve also told them the tooth fairy comes through the vents and they bought it so it seemed like a good idea to tell them the leprechauns get in the same way).

We probably only have a couple years left before they figure out that leprechauns don’t actually visit on St. Patrick’s Day. I’ll be a little bummed when that happens.

We’ll still celebrate anyway.