It's St. Patrick's Day Eve. Excited? Me neither. This year, I'm getting the impression that no one is really enjoying it. It's always been kind of a difficult sell: it's a holiday focused on heavy drinking and stereotypes. So it's great for drinkers (who get an excuse to drink) and children (who have a nice easy topic for the day's colouring assignments.)
For anyone else, there's not a lot. You wear green, and either drink enough to regret it, or avoid the people who are drinking. Actual Irish people are uncomfortable with the caricaturing. And this year, I even found people online getting riled up over abbreviating it as "St. Patty's Day" rather than the apparently correct "St. Paddy's Day." You'll notice that the tag I've been using on St. Patrick’s-related articles uses the former. Whoops, sorry I disrespected the religious figure we honour by wearing silly hats and drinking to unconsciousness.
So we need a new way of celebrating St. Patrick's Day. I'm not sure what that could be. Perhaps emphasize Celtic music? Play up the snake-charming angle? Competitions to read Ulysses in twenty-four hours?
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