5 Things To Keep In Mind For A Most Magical St. Patrick’s Day

With St. Patrick’s Day coming up, I thought it would be helpful to share some things that you should keep in mind while celebrating this holiday.  In many ways, St. Patrick’s Day is the best holiday of the year because there are low expectations on what is required of you.  You don’t have the pressure of cooking a turkey, meeting in-laws, and it’s the one day of the year drinking in the morning is not frowned upon.  What’s not to love?  Here are just five things to keep in mind this St. Patrick’s Day.

1.  In the world of day drinking, pacing is king.

For the people that celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by starting their drinking when the sun is just beginning to rise, I recommend writing the word “pace” on your hand to remind yourself to do just that during the day.  St. Paddy’s Day is a drinking marathon, not a sprint.  In fact, one could argue that they could rename St. Paddy’s Day to be St. Pacing’s Day.  I recommend avoiding shots at least until the sun goes down.  Just stick to the green beers, because you rarely get the chance to enjoy a beer that looks like the milk leftover in your cereal bowl after eating some Lucky Charms.

2.  Go check out the parade if one’s available

Parades are great, and St. Patrick’s Day Parades are especially great if you can manage to watch one go buy with a green beer in your hand.   One thing that makes parades so great is that it offers viewers a perfect blend of visual entertainment and social commentary. Each new float offers a new opinion or question to form inside your brain that you and your friends can discuss as it passes by.  It can be as simple a question as, “I wonder how long it took them do put that float together?” or it could be a more complex one like, “Do leprechauns still appreciate chocolate gold coins?”

3.  Use a buddy system.

Do not go out on St. Paddy’s Day alone.  It may start with drinking just one Irish car bomb, but then you figure you might as well have a green beer to wash it down while you’re there.  Then the parade will start so you won’t be able to get to your car very easily.  By that point, you might as well stick around and watch the parade go by, and if you’re going to watch the parade you might as well watch it with another green beer.  In a way St. Patrick’s Day is the ultimate adult alcoholic version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  This is a slippery St. Paddy’s Day slope that leads to bad decisions and possible public intoxication tickets.  This is why it’s a good idea to always have a buddy with you.  Also, it’s fun using the buddy system as proven in the movie Heavyweights where you can yell “Buddy!” at one side of the bar and hear a faint “Buddy!” from the other side of the room to let you know your buddy’s ok.

4.  Do not, under any circumstances, cry noticeably in public.

This kind of goes along with the buddy system as you shouldn’t be left alone at a bar on St. Paddy’s Day.  Your buddy in your buddy system should pull you out of a scenario if ever you feel a large scale weeping session sweeping over you due to too many green beers.  I’ll never forget an encounter I had with a young lady at a bar on St. Paddy’s Day who was crying hysterically alone by herself.  I felt bad for her so I went and asked her if she was alright or if she had some friends with her somewhere.  She had apparently never heard of the buddy system, because she responded totally rationally by screaming, “What do you want from me?” Here just take this and leave me alone!” The “take this” she was referring to was a slightly crumpled up ten dollar bill she attempted to throw aggressively towards my person.  This was wildly confusing to me, and the bill didn’t travel very far as most crumpled bills tend to do.  It had to have been very unsatisfying throwing the bill as hard as she did without it really gaining any momentum.  It’d be kind of like trying to throw a football into the wind after just dipping your throwing hand into Crisco, all while sobbing uncontrollably.  I honestly didn’t know how to react so I simply chuckled a bit at the scenario she had created for herself,  wished her a Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and I was on my way.

5.  Blast some Irish music, because it is one of the happiest forms of music you will ever find.

Remember that scene in Titanic where Rose and Jack are swinging around dancing and listening to what I would describe as St. Patrick’s Day music?  Remember how happy they were?  Forget what most people say, Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” is not the best song in that movie.  The best song is that bag pipe fueled music playing in the background of the dancing scene.  Everyone feels overjoyed when they hear some fiddles, bagpipes, and whatever those clicky things are that play in the background of almost every St. Paddy’s Day song.  Search St. Patrick’s Day Radio on Pandora and I assure you it will put a smile on your face.  It is especially rewarding around some of your best friends enjoying a fine pint of magical green beer.  There’s no better genre of music for drinking with a group of friends.  Almost every song that has vocals sounds like an inebriated group of friends, all with their arms around each other’s shoulder, sing shouting about drinking and friendship.  It’s the only genre where you can audibly hear the singers leaning and swaying as they sing.

So this St. Patrick’s Day throw on some green, grab a buddy, and comment on a parade passing by while listening to some staggering singers over some clicking spoons.  Just don’t start crying for no reason, and if you see someone crying out in public, tweet me a picture, hashtag it #SadPaddysDay, and then find their buddy. Have a safe and happy St. Patrick’s Day!