While St. Patrick’s Day started as a religious feast day some centuries ago, it has evolved into an extremely popular and fun holiday for people around the world. This traditional day is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate Irish culture and spend time with family, friends, and neighbors. While there isn’t a shortage of parades, bar crawls, 5Ks, and other community events happening on this day, not all the fun has to be out and about. We’ve put together this list of our top picks for festive ways to celebrate St. Patty’s Day from home.
Make Craft Cocktails
Image by Mae Mu | Licensed with Unsplash License
Craft cocktails are quite enjoyable to both create and drink. These special beverages can have all sorts of ingredients, flavors, and liquor bases. Build St. Patty’s Day drinks like Baileys floats, appletinis, or Irish mules. You get extra points if your final product is green.
Do Holiday Crafts
Craft-making is a terrific at-home activity, and it’s easy to do in groups. Consider making St. Patrick’s Day cards out of construction paper, markers, stickers, and glitter glue. Other crafting ideas include painting pots, weaving friendship bracelets, and designing custom T-shirts.
Bake Something Sweet
Try a new recipe and bake an authentic Irish baked good. Work together to make a classic dessert like Irish pancakes, apple cake, or lemon pudding. One of the best ideas is Irish soda bread, which you can pair with sweet marmalade, honey, or jam.
Play Board Games
The right board game can give you and your guests hours of entertainment. Consider playing a card game, Settlers of Catan, darts, Taboo, or Exploding Kittens. You might even be able to find an Irish-themed board game to play, or you can order one from an online store.
Watch a Movie
Cozying up on the couch and watching movies is one of the best ways to relax during your time off. Choose an Irish-related movie like Leap Year, a romance about a woman who heads to Dublin to propose to her partner but encounters unexpected events. Another option is The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a story of an Irish student and his brother in the midst of the Irish War of Independence in the 1920s. While Braveheart focuses on a legendary Scottish patriot, there are some great Irish characters and references in the movie.
Cook an Irish Meal
Consider cooking a traditional Irish recipe if you want to get crafty in the kitchen. For example, you could try potato soup, shepherd’s pie, smoked salmon, or corned beef and cabbage. Not only would this be an adventure for your taste buds, but it would be a great opportunity to spend time and make memories with your loved ones.
Play a Sport
Do you have a backyard or a park near your house? One fun way to get out and get active is by playing a sport or outdoor game with family and friends. Compete in basketball games like HORSE, hold a kickball tournament, or play a giant game of hide-and-seek around the neighborhood. If you have kids, consider making a St. Patty’s Day-themed scavenger hunt for them.
Learn About Irish History
Ireland has a vibrant and complex history, culture, and folklore. Learning about this could be a superb way to celebrate the holiday for any nerds or history buffs. Consider telling everyone at your party to find at least three interesting facts about the country and presenting them to the group. This would help you learn interesting facts, but it could also spark engaging discussions between you and your guests.
Have a Dance Party
Any celebration is incomplete without music. Work with your guests to search online, find traditional and modern Irish songs, and make a great holiday playlist. Make sure to feature plenty of bagpipes. If you’re feeling brave, look up a video tutorial of an Irish folk dance, learn the steps, and perform it together.
Play a Drinking Game
For the 21-and-up crowd, drinking games can be excellent ideas for loosening up, getting to know each other, and having fun. Play a game you already know, find an idea online, or make the rules up yourselves. Stay on theme with Irish-inspired drinks. There are plenty of spirits to choose from, including Baileys Irish Cream, Bushmills Irish whiskey, and Guinness beer.
Host a Costume Contest
A lively method for getting into the St. Patrick’s Day spirit is to host a costume contest for your party guests. Don’t be afraid to don anything from kilts, tutus, and beads to green face paint. Make sure to acquire a magnificent prize in advance for the contest winner.
Decorate Cookies
Satisfy your sweet tooth and channel your creativity by doing a cookie-decorating activity. Make simple sugar cookies and cut them out into St. Patty’s Day shapes like top hats, four-leaf clovers, and rainbows. Then, use different colored icing, especially green, to decorate them in whatever design you want.
Play Irish-Themed Trivia
Trivia is a fantastic way to test your knowledge and have fun while you’re at it. Create an Irish-themed trivia game by thinking of questions in categories like geography, sports, music, history, and art. You could also find and download a premade game online.
Create a Painting
Get creative and draw or paint a scene of an Irish-themed subject like the lush green countryside, a breathtaking medieval castle, or the great Irish elk. Get plenty of supplies beforehand, including different paint colors, paintbrushes, and canvases. You can also lookup video tutorials to guide you in creating a masterpiece.
Whether you want to relax, party, be creative or get competitive with friends and family members, there are more options for entertaining activities from home on St. Patrick’s Day. Did we miss any good ideas? Do you have any special at-home St. Patrick’s Day traditions that you do with your loved ones? Let us know at Huffines CJDR Plano so we can add them to our list.