St. Patty's Day Chez Pearl (2021)

We had our whole VA gang over for an early St. Patrick's Day celebration on Saturday the 13th: altogether, we had 10 adults and 17 children gathered in our cookie-cutter cottage.  It was a bit crazy and chaotic, but in a good way.  And although I am actually more of a fan of rooms with walls and doorways than I am of the whole open floor plan craze, I must admit that it's a good thing this house was built with the latter design in mind.  I don't know that we would be able to have our huge and ever-expanding crew gathered comfortably in our home at one time otherwise.

I love planning for parties.  I love decorating and setting the tables and deciding which dishes and desserts to make.  I love cooking ahead of time, so that I can relax the day of the party (relax being a relative term, when you've got 17 young grandchildren running about the house!).  I always start out with somewhat Pinteresty ideas of what it will all look like and how it will all go.  Then soon after everyone arrives, I realize that Pinterestiness (that’s a word, or it should be!)  is unrealistic and overrated.  But that doesn't stop me from puttering around in happy anticipation, trying to make things look festive and pretty.  

And it doesn’t stop me from making a lovely rainbow of layered fruit (that few will even be tempted to eat; for fruit, I believe, is overrated as a party food--at least at our parties!).

I was hoping we would get family pictures of everyone standing in front of the large green cloth I tacked up on the wall, wearing some of the Irish-themed photo booth props I've collected.  Alas, that did not happen.  We did manage to get a few pictures, but not of everyone in attendance.

I used photos of our youngest son, who could only be with us in spirit, as party decorations--like this one of him dressed up as the Emerald Isle's beloved patron in his second grade All Saints Day parade (at the Catholic school he attended until we pulled him out and homeschooled him from 4th grade through 8th). 

I also froze my electronic photo frame slide show on a picture of him looking quite apropos for a St. Patty's party.  It was originally the serious "tough guy" photo used in the football team's programs his senior year of high school, but his older brothers decided to tease him by doctoring it up on the computer a number of times and turning him into, among other things, a leprechaun.

They did this to him years ago, and posted their doctored pictures on Facebook.  
He wasn't as amused by it then as he is now!  (Sometimes it's tough being the youngest brother!)

Aside from the cooler filled with Guinness and other beers and sodas to drink, I made a big bowl of green citrus punch for the party.  It's my mother-in-law's signature party punch, simple and delicious: one can of frozen lemonade or limeade, one cold 2-liter bottle of ginger ale, and some frozen strawberries floating on top.  (I added green food coloring for St. Patty's Day.) This punch is great for kids, but it also works as a tasty adult beverage, spiked with either whiskey or white wine.  

I wish I'd gotten a "before" picture of the punch bowl. Here's the "after" shot, taken after our 3-year-old grandson, one of son #4's mischievous triplets, quietly added all the missing ingredients I never knew it needed (including small toys, cheese slices, crackers, sun-dried tomatoes, cans, bottles, cups, and other assorted garbage items).

Pinterest fail!  

That photo is not a set-up.  That is really how I found the punch bowl, after the little dickens went unsupervised for just a matter of minutes and used the opportunity to quietly work on his masterpiece. Luckily, this was towards the end of the night and I'd already made a second batch of the punch, the first having been consumed earlier.

If you are curious to know what our house looks like after one of our family shindigs, just imagine the rest of the place in not much better shape than the punch bowl!  Ha ha!

I think that all in all, the party was a success, with plenty to eat and drink.  For dinner, we had corned beef and cabbage (plus Chick Fit A chicken nuggets as a back-up, for the kiddos), with mashed potatoes and Irish soda bread; for dessert, there was Bailey's Irish Cream cake (using a recipe from Emily Stimpson Chapman's "Around the Catholic Table" cookbook), along with shamrock-shaped cookies and my daughter-in-law's famous cinnamon rolls.  There were lots of kids playing together in the basement, and other kids chasing each other around on the first floor; there were big girl cousins holding their little baby cousins...and as for all the grown-up herselves and himselves, there was lots of craic (as in enjoyable conversation, entertainment, and fun).  So yes, I'll count it as a success indeed.

Speaking of craic: here’s a taste of what it's like for the wee folks when we party chez Pearl, in a video taken by my daughter-in-law (the mom of the triplets plus one more).

Good times!

I hope you had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day, too.  Slainte!