When getting ready for your St. Patrick’s Day party, you can make the atmosphere more festive with these ideas.
Music: Play some fun Celtic music during your party and you will set the stage for a great evening (or afternoon)! You can find dozens of play lists or music collections on-line which will make it simple to put together in just minutes or take a trip to your local library to borrow a few CDs for your event.
Food: Plan to have a wide variety of foods that are green in color. This will make it easy to have healthy foods available for your guests as well as give a festive flair to the party. You can serve raw veggies such as cucumber, green pepper, broccoli, guacamole (and chips), and green olives.
For warmer, cooked foods you might want to try a spinach and artichoke dip or green beans. You can make pasta salad with green noodles (look in a health food store for noodles made with spinach which will be more nutritious) or breads colored with green food coloring.
There are plenty of drink recipes from Mountain Dew punch to Shamrock Shakes. Try this simple recipe for some pretty green shakes. Put three cups of mint chocolate chip ice cream and one cup of milk in the blender. Blend on high until blended well. You may want to add more milk to get the consistency that you want. Serves 2.
Desserts can be grasshopper pie, cupcakes with green frosting, sugar cookies with green sprinkles or pistachio pudding.
Have some festive, green and gold foil wrapped candies in bowls as well as green chocolate coated candies.
Table Settings: Make your table and table settings festive by buying some pretty green or shamrock decorated plates, napkins, tablecloths, silverware (wash and save for using again next year to save money). Or you could get decorative and get a white table cloth and some rubber stamps and green ink and have fun making your own pattern. You could do the same for place mats too. Your centerpiece can be a pretty green plant or a pot of gold (chocolate coins in a black pot).
Decorations: Get the party started from the outside by decorating your mailbox with a fun slip cover or hanging a cute leprechaun flag on your porch. Inside, decorate the walls or windows with cut outs of shamrocks, leprechaun, and pots of gold. Put some gold foil covered chocolate coins in a large pot to make a pot of gold!