Thanks to hidden forces I had no idea about, I grew up believing in the mythical powers of multiple holiday figures — most famously Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and leprechauns St. Patrick’s Day. Magically, these characters would all come to my house in the dark of night and leave gifts — candy canes, Easter eggs and chocolate coins, to name only a few.
That was until one fateful day in fifth grade when I discovered my old letter to Santa stashed in my dad’s bag. I burst into tears as I realized that the magic was over. However, I now cherish those memories and am grateful that I got to experience them.
The story of the leprechaun was one of my favorite myths to take part in. My elementary school teachers would read my classmates a book about the myth every year. As the story went, a leprechaun would visit our house on St. Patrick’s Day and he was desperate for gold. He would cause mischief throughout the house until he came across the trap I set. The idea was that he would get caught in the trap and in the morning would be discovered, but, unfortunately, I never caught a leprechaun — although he always left me chocolate coins.
My earliest memory of this childhood tradition was in kindergarten. Every kid spent hours making a leprechaun trap and brought them to class the day before St. Patrick’s Day. We left them there overnight, hoping our trap would be the one to catch the leprechaun. The next morning, the leprechaun had trashed the classroom. He had flipped our chairs over, peed green urine in the bathroom and escaped every single one of our traps. The nerve!
My friends and I excitedly looked at our traps, checking to see if we had caught a leprechaun. Sadly, none of us were lucky enough to have done so.
All of a sudden, I notice one kid shaking his leprechaun trap. It was made of a shoebox, so you couldn’t see inside of it. He called over my teacher, Ms. Milligan, and she inspected the trap. With full concentration and emotional investment, she told the kid to check inside. He opened it up and … the leprechaun was not there. We all sighed in disappointment.
Every year, I would make a leprechaun trap myself, using whatever materials I had at home, even after we stopped making them at school. I scrapped together shoeboxes, paper cups, toilet paper rolls and other random items from my recycling. The leprechaun would leave footprints and green glitter throughout the house.
While I never managed to catch a craft leprechaun, I have a lot of appreciation for the magical childhood memories this myth and others gave me. I hope that I can continue these traditions when I have kids, and that they can experience the same joy I did. I am extremely grateful for the memories that my elementary school teachers and my mom were able to create for me. That excitement — and even my never-ending failures to catch the leprechaun — is something I’ll never forget.
