St. George’s Day
Home » CELEBRATE » Party Planning »Just like last year, St. George’s Day has crept up on me and I didn’t do a thing to celebrate…so, instead, I’ll repost my Sunday Inspiration post from 2012 in the hope that it’ll inspire me to get in gear for 2014!!!!!
Things just creep up on you sometimes. Like time…I don’t seem to have had enough of it recently, so this Sunday Inspiration is the first one I’ve done for weeks {months?!} and it’s for a celebration that is happening tomorrow.
I’ve already talked about two patron saints – St. David and St. Patrick which the Welsh and the Irish (respectively) celebrate with great gusto. Tomorrow is St. George’s Day which is England’s patron saint. The English don’t do much to celebrate this, and after looking on Wikipedia it turns out that there are quite a few other countries that celebrate this. Never knew this!
There is a campaign to try and get St. George’s Day recognized as a public holiday in England…after all, Ireland recognizes St. Patrick’s day as a public holiday, as does Scotland for their saint’s day, St. Andrew. Wales it seems doesn’t have their saint’s day as a public holiday (despite trying and it got rejected)
When you see London go all out for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, it does make you a bit sad that nothing is ever done for England’s patron saint. I always put an England flag outside my house, or get my husband to jump in the air with a flag in his hands as seen above.
A quick history lesson perhaps? [Straight from Wiki!]
Saint George (c. 275/281 – 23 April 303) was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier from Syria Palaestina and a soldier in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography, Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic (Western and Eastern Rites), Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches. He is immortalized in the tale of Saint George and the Dragon and is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. His memorial is celebrated on 23 April, and he is regarded as one of the most prominent military saints.
On with ways to celebrate! I’ll be concentrating on English things, but looking through Wiki it was interesting to see the way that other countries celebrate St. George.
Here’s my son when he was young with his face painted with the England flag colours. It wasn’t for St. George’s Day, but for the World Cup!
England’s national flower is the red rose. What an easy way to decorate for St. George’s Day!
The one in the picture is a bouquet of flowers my husband bought for me :)
An easy way to dress up for the day! A red rose corsage in your hair :)
And finally some food ideas…starting with cupcakes!
Any cake with red and white would echo the England flag, so here are some more…
You can’t get any more English than Afternoon Tea…I love tea parties! Very easy to put together at a moment’s notice – a few cakes, some finger sandwiches and a pot of tea are all you need!
Traditional sandwich fillings would be cheese and pickle, cucumber, smoked salmon, ham and mustard. All with the crusts of the bread cut off and cut into dainty triangles or rectangles!
And finally some good old English fayre!
Bread and Butter Pudding from Delia Online Treacle Sponge from Delia Online
And there we have it! I hope you find a recipe or idea there that you might try out for St. George’s Day. I plan on making *something English* tomorrow. Not sure what yet…Of course, I’ll blog about it!
It’s a bit of a rush post this morning as I’m getting ready to go and celebrate my dad’s 60th birthday! His birthday is actually tomorrow – St. George’s Day. My siblings and I have made him (what we hope will be) a wonderful, nostalgic gift which I’ll tell you about in the week. I’ve also made a batch of ’60’ cupcakes (in red and white) to celebrate.
Growing up, my dad ran a pub called ‘The George’. So I remember him going all out for St. George’s Day when the company would send decorations to put up. Here’s a picture of mine from Flickr that I took when I re-visited a few weeks ago. I still get nostalgic about the place – lots of happy memories!