Green or Orange?

 This darling butter pot was a gift from my Secret Pal at work last Saint Patrick's Day

Holiday #3 - Saint Patrick's Day is here!  Are you wearing green or orange?

This may sound like a ridiculous question.  Doesn't everyone wear green on Saint Patrick's Day, Irish or not?  As a kid in upstate New York, the answer was a resounding "yes"!  Wearing green got you a free ice cream cone at Stewarts!  (Last year they were 50 cents, silly recession.)  At some point, I wondered why everyone of my acquaintence wasn't bubbling over in green at this time of year, and my mom explained to me that some people just view the holiday as an excuse to go out drinking, and some other people don't want to be associated with that.

In high school and college, there was the discovery that the Protestant color is orange!  My dear friend Jenni from Northern (Loyalist, Protestant) Ireland, GB, even expressed that she didn't really celebrate it at home because it was a very Catholic holiday.  We wore orange for a couple of years as a result.  Later, though, she told me that she'd learned Saint Patrick was instrumental in bringing Christianity to Ireland.  I don't know much of the history; I did a little reading on Wikipedia, and it sounds very complex.  ;-) But all that goes to say that perhaps it's not awful to wear green after all . . .

Carrika-Rede Rope Bridge, N.I.

Photo taken by Jenni's friend, Patrycja

Northern Ireland is quite possibly my favorite place in the whole world.  I was greatly privileged to visit there with my brother in April 2007.  We stayed in Co. Antrim and saw Mt. Slemish, where St. Patrick is supposed to have worked as a shepherd.  Having Scots-Irish blood from both our parents, we were excited to find a "Derek Reid" in the phone book while we were there!  An Irish lady we talked to on the plane even thought at first that I was an Irish girl traveling with my American boyfriend!  Of course, it's also my favorite place because one of my favorite people lives there.  Love you, Jenni!