St Patrick’s Day Shamrock Cookies

   

Shamrock Cookies

St Patrick’s Day is next week!  Really?  Is it already getting to be the middle of March?  The weather here has been absolutely perfect and I’m hoping that we get at least a few more weeks (would MONTHS be too much to ask for?) of nice weather before the heat hits.

As I was planning some fun St Patrick’s Day fun for my kiddos I realized that I have absolutely no idea the history behind St Patrick’s Day.  Who in the world was St Patrick?

So, I did a little research and found a few facts:

1. St Patrick was not even Irish but was born British.
2. At 16 he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Ireland.  He spent 7 years as a slave tending sheep.  It was through his horrible life there that he found and converted to Christianity.
3. According to folklore, he had a dream that told him to escape and find a way back to Britain.  He was able to get passage on a pirate ship and was reunited with his family.
4. He was ordained a priest and felt the need to return to Ireland to convert the Irish to Christianity.
5. He spent the remainder of his days preaching while being mocked and beaten on a regular basis.
6. After his death he was mostly forgotten.
7. Slowly mythology grew around him and centuries later he was honored as the Patron Saint in Ireland.
8. St Patrick’s Day was a religious celebration in which most families had a big feast to celebrate St Patrick.
9. In the 1970s St Patrick’s Day made it’s way to America where the majority of the secular traditions were started.
10. And now today we have lepracauns, 4 leaf clovers, pots of gold, rainbows and the color green.

So…Now that I know a little about the holiday, let’s get on with some St Patrick’s Day fun.

St Patrick’s Day Shamrock Cookies

My 4-year-old has been sick so couldn’t make it to preschool last week so I had the entire week to entertain him.  Fun for me! 😉  We had fun making these and some other St Patrick’s day food/crafts together that I’ll be sharing throughout the next week.

These cookies are so easy to make and you can use this technique of decorating for pretty much any holiday.

1-Start by making some large circle sugar cookies from your favorite recipe.

2-Frost with your favorite frosting.

3-Right after frosting, put a shamrock cookie cutterin the center of the cookies.

5-Use the cookie cutter as a guide to add sprinkles to your cookies.

6-If you want, put a decorative edge of frosting around the outside of your cookies.

7-Enjoy!

Some people feel it is silly to do things like this for every holiday, and to an extent I agree but I love to make the holidays fun and exciting for my kids and they’re only little once.

Do you celebrate St Patrick’s day with your kids?

Also, if you have a weakness for cookies like I do you need to check out my two favorite cookie recipes:

Chocolate Chip Angel Cookies

and Country Raisin Gingersnaps.