March Roll Call: How do you celebrate your heritage?

The start of March is a fine time to say hello and send rainbows of good luck and pots of gold your way. A warm welcome to new followers 🙂  To all, thanks a bunch of shamrocks for reading, your follow, likes, and comments!  I never take you or your valuable time for granted. I would also love a comment from you about what’s on you mind, how you’re feeling, or what you’re doing this month.

As you may have guessed from my oh-so-subtle green hints, this month my family and I will celebrate our Irish-American heritage. Over the years, March has been filled with a variety of fun to include throwing parties, attending St. Patrick’s Day parades, singing Irish (mostly drinking) songs, telling Irish jokes (mostly clean), drinking Irish beer and whiskey (are you noticing a pattern?), eating corned beef and cabbage (you would like mine yes you would), and watching movies like The Quiet Man and Darby O’Gill and the Little People. the quiet man

Do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? How and when do you celebrate your heritage? What is your favorite thing about March?

‘Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so. ~~~~~~~~Angie Mc

This roll call is my effort to find, keep, and introduce bloggers by providing a doable, encouraging, and engaging blog environment. To meet bloggers I appreciate, check out Angie Mc’s Reblog Love  and previous Roll Calls: February 2015,  January 2015, December 2014, November 2014 . Thank you!

45 thoughts on “March Roll Call: How do you celebrate your heritage?”

  1. My mom’s side is Irish but since they are all in heaven, there is no celebrating. In fact, this year all I have planned 3/17 is a chiropractor’s appt. LOL. But I always wear green. And frankly, I get upset when people say, “Oh, I didn’t REALIZE it was St. Patrick’s Day” or “I don’t have any green.” Who doesn’t have a color in their closet? How is that a thing? Go to Goodwill and spend $8 on a green shirt. Mercy.

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  2. Hi Angie, you must be glad to see spring arrive after the winter, as I am pleased to see autumn arrive here, but I think we have some warm days still ahead.
    When I was at school, many years ago, we celebrated St Patrick’s Day with a march through the town and a sports day all held on a Saturday. Now days that doesn’t happen and St Patrick’s Day is a very low key event in Australia. If we remember we wear green on the day but its lost its significance in these times.
    I come from a Irish background on my dad’s side and a Scottish one on my mum’s. Yes my grandmother married a Protestant, such scandal I imagine at the time.
    I know far more about my Irish background than I do my Scottish one. I think it is evidence of the multi cultural nature of Australia and as generations come along we have embraced a more ‘Australian’ heritage than a European one. That and a wanting to rid be of connections to colonial times.
    Enjoy your Spring and those Irish pub songs….

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  3. We celebrate everyone in our house! We do “Worldly Dinners” several times a year where we cook cuisine from that country and talk about what makes it special. For St. Patrick’s Day we make soda bread, lamb, stew, and colcannon.

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  4. Mom was Irish/German, and her family had been in Philadelphia since early 1800’s. Dad, who was 1st generation American, seemed more immersed in his culture/traditions of eastern Europe.We embraced that growing up in a community of Slovic/Hungarian ancestry, but never forgot the Irish in us and celebrated the green. (But not the food..Irish grandmother was a terrible cook !) p.s. Had family friends in the WilkesBarre area, lovely country !

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    • Philly has a terrific St. Patty’s parade and goodness knows many a pub! Interesting about your grandma not being a good cook. Neither was my paternal grandmother (a true eastern European mutt) whose second husband was Italian which explains my Italian taste buds if not genes! It was up to me to figure out the corned beef 😀 And how lovely that you know W/B! That fine town produced my dashing Dave ❤

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      • Pronounced Nannycoke! Yes, they have terrific pizza there (almost as good as Old Forge’s but don’t say I said that because it could start a fight!) Oh, man….now I’m craving pizza 😀

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  6. I pretty much celebrate my heritage by wrapping things up too securely for mailing and tripping up phone solicitors who ask for “Joseph Nebus” by asking “which one,” since my father has the same name. These are small things but they can be done anytime.

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  7. My mother always claimed Irish heritage and wore green on St Patrick’s Day. Turns out she wasn’t all that Irish after all, making her kids even *less* so, information I discovered online only a few years ago. So I’ve been busy *rejecting* my rather insubstantial Irish heritage!

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    • LOL Colette! Dave has a funny heritage story in that he was told he was Irish but it turns out his dad was mainly Scottish. Apparently at one time, it was much better to be Irish than Scottish?! Who knew? So now I’m guessing you’re Scottish 😀 And besides, I’m inviting you to be Irish on the 17th. What St. Patrick’s Day lacks in substance, it makes up for in beer and good cheer…I feel a song coming on 😀

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      • But is it really lacking compassion if we value the truth, reality? I ask myself this because there are folks in life who flat out do us wrong. Yet, for example, the rude guy we discussed recently (the one who expected you to be 3rd in his life), I think you wrote with great compassion (leniency, tolerance, humanity) because you wrote truthfully and with good humor. Compassion has many different faces. I like yours!

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      • Angie, you’ve given me something to think about and I’ve yet to come up with a totally coherent, comprehensive response. A few random… I’m intrigued by the idea of compassion having different faces. I’m not sure I feel so charitably toward the fellow who placed me at such a low priority but it’s been a long time and I tend to write about things I’ve (reasonably) processed. I do think I’m compassionate but I’m also tough and don’t want to cast myself in too good a light. Especially because I’ve been getting tougher… not so very tolerant, lenient, etc. But again, many thoughts! I do appreciate your feedback very much.

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      • I so wish you could join me and my local friend to really hash out the topic of toughness, compassion, and where the two meet! She’s from the south side of Chicago and I’m from the wrong side of the tracks. We’ve grown into compassionate ladies but somewhere we dropped our edge (not nice?) but made a conscience decision to get it back; somehow mature it into truth and clarity.

        As soon as you have a totally coherent comprehensive response, I will be in your debt 😀

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  9. I thought everybody was Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, Angie McFly! In Syracuse it seems that way on St. Patrick’s Day Parade Saturday, along the route and in the bars thereafter. No shortage of green! Maybe it’s a Northeast thing?

    My dear wife Karen and I celebrate at the Polish Fest with big plates of kielbasa and pierogi, and golumpki for her, which she prefers. She’s of gypsy descent, so we should chase some goulash, too. I was with her when her Great Aunt Pauline told her that her maternal grandfather was Jewish. Nobody had told Karen and her siblings this when they were growing up! When I was a Catholic lad on Long Island, my Jewish friends included me at Bar Mitzahs and other traditions, so I’ve worn the yarmulke and attended synagogue and eaten matzoh. I even stood up in a Jewish ceremony wedding and found out that they swapped in a light bulb instead of a glass for the foot-stomping because it made a more impressive sound! Then the wedding party attendants were expected to hoist the couple’s fathers up high on chairs and parade them around the dance floor. What a ceremony that was. 🙂

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    • Right as always, Mark! I just *love* that everyone is Irish on St. Patty’s day…the beer *really* helps 😀 I see that Syracuse comes in at #9 on the largest St. Patrick’s Day parades. Will you and Karen attend? Fun, fun, fun!

      My paternal grandmother “has the polish in her” and she proves it with you stylish outfits (we call it bling!) She’s almost 100 and if there is any relative that I want to follow in their footsteps, it’s hers. Bring on the kielbasa, pierogi, golumpki, and…halushki? YUM! Oh how I pine for the days of church picnics where all the ethnic church ladies shared (competed) their old world recipes. At the polish church I would eat every flavor of pierogi, even prune!

      Love the Jewish connection and what a wonderful story you share. It is such a privilege to be entrusted with another person’s faith traditions. I can totally see you at that wedding!

      I, too, have enjoyed many cultural celebrations with friends. One of my favorites was when I graduated from my MPA program and my dearest friend was from Nigeria. There was a small and close-knit group of Nigerian nationals at the University and they all came out to celebrate. Dave and I were warmly welcomed and I can still see 6’1″ Dave jumping up and down during a traditional dance, hovering a foot above everyone else in the room 😀

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      • I love your story about pogo-ing for the traditional NIgerian dance at university with Dave a foot above all others, Angie McFly. That is trust all the way around, both sides of the tale.

        I don’t know the halushki, but I do know of the honored ladies wearing bling. Yay for your grandma. 🙂 Prune pierogi have not made it to my plate. Yet. Nobody in my past has made them. Potato, cheese, combo of those, sauerkraut …

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      • Found it: Halusky. It’s a dumpling or noodle side dish with lots of butter and sometimes cabbage thrown in, YUM! And the prune pierogi was sweet and served (sort of) like a dessert. I actually have a hand-written recipe for authentic pierogi around here somewhere given to me by a church lady many years ago. It’s pages…*pages* long. Maybe someday 😀

        Dave pogo-ing, exactly!

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  10. Our niece married an Irish fellow a few years ago and is currently expecting baby number 2, so her mom has started hosting St. Patrick’s day celebrations at her house for her new grandkids. I’ve come to experience the joys of Irish Soda Bread and Kerry Gold Irish butter along with the corned beef and cabbage!

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  11. I have some popsts to really catch up on – and glad I made it to this cheery one – and we used to celebrate st paddy’s day when I lived in update NY – and there was always excitement around town – but here in VA – not so much – so no, we do not celebrate – except sometimes I will make reuben sandwiches or an Irish crockpot meal – but you are correct – I think I would like your corn beef and cabbage – mmmmmmmm

    🙂
    happy st paddy’s day to you and yours
    xxoo

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  13. “And the faeries were laughing too, and the faeries were laughing too!” Oh my goodness, Sean Connery was quite the looker as a young man, even in Darby O’Gill! LOL

    Interestingly, while I do claim Irish and German ancestry, and a whole Heinz 57 of others, when I hear heritage, I think of the land of my birth, and I celebrate that by doing the Pledge of Allegiance every day we do school, and by crying every time I hear the National Anthem. 🙂

    And I do paint my nails green and orange and gold for St Patrick’s Day. 😀

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