why Saint Patrick's?
Zion wore green today, but only coincidentally: he was wearing green yesterday, and the boys in our house don't change their clothes with any great frequency. But since he doesn't go to school, no one commented on his green shirt, nor did anyone mention Harvey or Lijah's lack of verdant apparel. The fact is, I had no idea it was St. Patrick's Day until I got to work and checked in with Facebook (I have to use Facebook for work! really!) where I saw a banner wishing me the best of the day, along with dozens of photos of folks in green celebrating the holiday in all kinds of ways.
While I do kind of remember getting pinched as a kid for not wearing green to school (I've always been kind of oblivious) I wonder if St. Patrick's Day always used to be such a big deal. If not, I'm going to say that Facebook has something to do with the change. Certainly, Facebook is a great promoter of holidays—both the ones the site officially encourages you to celebrate (Mothers Day, say) and the ones that have grown through more natural social media (Pi Day). Now it doesn't work for me—I'm such a rebel that when someone tells me to observe a holiday I just ask, "why should I?!"—but for people who live joyful, connected lives it must be nice to have a central repository of reasons to celebrate.
And really, the more celebration we have going on the better, right? It's nice for days to be special, and it's nice for folks to be able to connect with each other through shared experience, either over social media or in person. So yay! Just know that there may be a few of us who aren't participating, thanks to obliviousness or obstreperousness or some combination of the two, and that's ok too. No pinches, please!