Since yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, our Spirit Week theme for the day was, obviously, holiday-related.  We wore green (with the exception of Ashley, who chose orange - my friend Charity has been telling us for years that Protestants are to wear orange on St. Patty's Day, green is what Catholics wear - I've never really researched it, but I'm sure she knows what she's talking about!)  Anyway, yesterday turned into a very interesting and busy day (which I'll be posting about!) so we never got around to taking this picture 'til the evening:

Notice that Ian even found a green bear to help us celebrate!  I got up in the morning and decided that Stanley's polka-dot tie just would not do - so I made him a nice, new, shamrock tie, in honor of the Spirit Week festivities.  Cute, huh?

Leah~ you will have to let me know if you'd like Stanley to keep this tie (it is removable) - I didn't know if you'd like your classmates to see it or not.  Just have your mom leave a comment or you can call us, ok?

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Mar. 18, 2009 - Stanley's tie

Posted by Anonymous

I think Leah would like Stanley to keep his St. Patty's tie. Her friends would enjoy seeing that :)
Tell Stanley we said hello.

Sue

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Mar. 18, 2009 - About the ORANGE on St. Patrick's Day for Heidi's blog readers. :)

Posted by mamaof3

On this St. Patrick's Day, many of you are likely to take part in that time-honored tradition of wearing green. If not, you risk punishment-by-pinch, an especially popular custom on schoolyards and around office water coolers. Thus, wearing green on St. Patrick's Day is not only widely practiced, it's virtually required. It's hard to imagine the holiday without green.

But for a growing number of people, taking part in the fun means wearing orange. According to this increasingly popular tradition, Protestants wear orange and green attire is left to Catholics. Thus, the color you wear is actually dependent on your religious affiliation. While this color tradition is not well known, it has deep roots in Irish history.


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Protestant Irish have been known as "orange" ever since 1690, when William of Orange (William III), the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, defeated King James II, a Roman Catholic, in the Battle of the Boyne near Dublin. King William's victory would ensure Protestant dominance on the island and has been a source of tension ever since.

Although the "Orange" in William's name actually referred to a province in southern France, the color reference stuck. This is why orange now appears in the Irish flag — to symbolize the Protestant minority in Ireland.

Thus, "Orange Protestants" have been around for quite a while, but wearing the color on St. Patrick's is a relatively new phenomenon. The first group take part in the tradition appears to have been the Orange Institution, a Protestant fraternal organization more commonly known as the Orange Order. Some members of the order wore orange in various parades on St. Patrick's Day as a mark of defiance.

Ironically, St. Patrick himself would have been surprised by all of the fuss. Patrick wasn't even Irish; he came to Celtic Ireland as a British missionary. But more importantly, Patrick did most of his work in the 5th century at a time when Christians were simply Christians, long before any division was evident between Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Therefore, St. Patrick belongs to the whole church, not just Rome, and people of all colors and creeds should take part in the festivities. Yet for some Protestants, part of that fun involves wearing orange. So before the green-wearing Irish among you get into a pinching craze, think twice. Some of us wear orange for a reason.

The flag of IRELAND is GREEN, WHITE and ORANGE, too! :)



Edited by mamaof3 on Mar. 18, 2009 at 10:50 PM

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