How To Catch A Leprechaun

Let me just start with telling you that I don’t think I ever had things align so perfectly, while unplanned at the same time, before this evening. With that, I don’t have many pictures to share from our evening other than what I took after the girls went to bed. Forgive me for the poor quality in pics.

The world is on high alert as we all watch in anticipation in hopes for the COVID-19 outbreak to soon be over, but that doesn’t mean St. Patrick’s Day is cancelled. I was already planning on wearing something green and making my traditional corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and that would be the gist of my plans to celebrate. Until I had the idea of making a trap to catch a leprechaun?

How this idea came to mind? Organically really. Just a spare of the moment thought I decided to run with. I received a package in the mail that came in a small box and I immediately thought to myself “This would make a perfect Leprechaun trap.” Why I had this thought right before it was my kids bedtime is baffling to me, but I ran with it.

I pulled out some scrap craft paper, a stapler and told the girls to come to the kitchen table. I asked them if they wanted to catch a Leprechaun! They both jump up and down and yelled “Yes!”. Then Brooke looked at me and asked “Why?”. I was not prepared for that question. I had no idea why we were making a trap other than it was a random thought in my head. So i just told her because leprechauns have gold and maybe he will give us some. Sounds pretty greedy I know! But off went on making our trap. So we stapled our craft paper to a cardboard box to cover it and I asked the girls to make rainbows. I told them that leprechauns like rainbows because there is always a pot of gold at the end of it. I then let the girls staple their rainbows to the top of the box. I told my girls that we would need a stick or something like a stick to hold our trap up and Brooke picked an un-sharpened pencil which ended up being perfect. We found some extra stickers from our Trader Joe’s visit from a few weeks ago and BAM! We had ourselves a leprechaun trap. It was perfectly imperfect.

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I read to the girls every night before bed. I wanted to read a book about St. Paddy’s Day or leprechauns but I don’t own any. Thankfully the girls have a subscription to ABC Mouse. ABC Mouse has a virtual catalog of books that you can read that comes with the subscription. So I searched “leprechaun” and crossed my fingers in hopes of finding something. Thankfully the book “The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow” popped up. Keep in mind that I’ve never read this book or heard of it before this moment. I had no idea what we were getting into, but it was a book along the theme I wanted to read, and that was enough for me. Because again I decided to do all this before bedtime and I need alone mommy time at night to keep my sanity.

I won’t go into full detail on the story but it along these lines. The story is about a little girl who has a grandfather that will be playing his bagpipes during the St. Patrick’s Day parade, but its raining. A leprechaun, Roy G. Biv, appears to the girl and asked her to help him find his lost pot of gold, it is at the end of a rainbow. If he can make a rainbow, it will stop the rain. Then if the rain stops, everyone will stay for the parade and they will be able to see her grandfather play. To make a rainbow they have to collect items that are the colors of the rainbow and stick it in his hat. So the girl collects items of hers that are red, orange, yellow, green. blue, indigo and violet and she pops them into the hat. They make a rainbow, the rain stops, and everyone hears her grandfather play in the parade. The leprechaun even gives the girl a special gift at the end. The book later explains that the name Roy G. Biv is an acronym for the colors of the rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple. It also talks about how rainbows are made in nature and how they are a part of story telling.

I told the girls that we were going to find small items around the house that make up the colors of the rainbow. And maybe the leprechaun will leave a gift for them because they made him a rainbow. I decided to stick to the basic 6 colors of; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. We have huge clovers on the side of the house and I said that we would use these for our green color. They then set off on a mission to find the colors that we needed to complete our rainbow. We set them under the box and got our trap ready. The girls went to bed and I now had to figure out how to dig myself out of this whole I was creating. I had no small gifts I could give them. I was not prepared for this craft at all. Then I remembered that a few months back I bought some chocolate coins from Trader Joe’s that I was holding onto for our Disneyland days. The girls love eating chocolate coins while waiting for a show or the parade. I decided to make a fun thank you letter from our leprechaun and left the 2 bags of coins inside the trap for my girls.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, I’ve never had something align so perfectly before like this. I am so happy that I went with that random thought in my head because now we can add a new tradition to our St. Paddy’s Day, catching a leprechaun? I hope that this inspires you to create with your kids with what you have around the house. It may not look “picture perfect” but it is none-the-less a magical moment you are creating with your child.

If you do decide to make a leprechaun trap of your own, I’ve created a few thank you notes you can print and use. If your leprechaun is leaving a gift, here are some other ideas other than chocolate coins; fruit snacks, granola bar, crayons, stickers, erasers, candy, coloring book, chap stick, hot wheels, really anything. The possibilities are endless.