An Attempt at a St. Patrick's Day Book

I have always wanted to be Irish.  Or maybe it was Catholic.  Either way, my interest in this group of people started when the majority of my friends went to something called "CCD" on Tuesday nights and at the end of this class they wore these great white dresses that resembled wedding gowns.  We were all 8 back then, and I wanted to wear one of those dresses so badly.

It seemed that if you grew up in Chicago, you had a good chance of either being Irish or Catholic, or both.  But not me. I grew up Presbyterian. Once, after a heated discussion with my parents over why I wasn't allowed to take Communion at church until I was 14, I told them, "When I grow up, I'm going to be Catholic."  I married someone who went to graduate school at Notre Dame, and that seemed to satisfy my Irish-Catholic interest (even though he's 100% Dutch).

At any rate, every St. Patrick's Day I wear green, and think about watching Circle of Friends, and eating soda bread, and this year I wanted to do some sort of book and activity with the girls to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  However, we don't really have any St. Patrick's Day books. 

I did the next best thing and took out The Song of Francis by Tomie dePaola.  You've got your Catholic Saint, plus the entire book is filled with color which reminded me of the rainbow and the pot of gold. 

It's a stretch, I know, but what I love about the book is that St. Francis wants to share the love of God that with everyone.  He doesn't know who to share it with because he is all alone, so an angel tells him to go ahead and share God's love - talk about it - and there will be a response.  Soon different parts of creation come to join in the singing, and the climatic part of the story has all of God's creation singing "Love! Love! Love!"

It's a little like that last scene in Love Actually.

Anyway, we talked about where we can see God's love in our lives.  We see it in Harper, and Hadley, and Mom, and Dad.  We see it in the squirrels outside our condo, and in the trees.  Hadley and Harper suggested we see His love in chocolate as well. 

We decorated birds to remind us of God's love in creation after we read the story.

And then we hung them in the sunroom.

It seems better then teaching them a drinking game.