Fun party activities for St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day, March 17, is a holiday celebrating the Irish saint, as well as Irish heritage, commemorated by parties and parades held around the world. Many big cities host Irish-themed parades and other festivities to mark the day. If you're hosting a St. Patrick's Day party, you'll want to have some party games ready for your guests to play. Here are a few fun party ideas for this St. Patrick's Day.

• Word games are a great way to celebrate and get into the spirit of the holiday, as the Irish people tend toward wordplay and banter.
• For example, start with a related word, such as "Blarney Stone," and challenge the person sitting next to you think of another Irish-themed word starting with the last letter of your word, like "Excalibur," a famous sword from Irish mythology.
• You continue the game until one of the players can't keep it going.

• It can also be fun to get crafty at your party.
• Set up a table with markers, paints, fabric paint, construction paper and other festive materials and help people design cards, t-shirts, posters, signs or other things they can use to remember your get-together.

• Limericks are a charming and silly literary Irish tradition.
• Encouraging your guests to come up with limericks at a party can be a great way to entertain them.
• Pass around pads of paper and pens, and explain to your guests what a limerick is and how to write one.
• People can work solo or in teams, and take turns reading their limericks aloud.
• You can even have prizes for the best ones.

• If you're hosting a St. Patrick's Day party for kids, they will love a game of hot potato.
• Have the children sit in a circle.
• Choose one of them to sit in the middle and play the leprechaun.
• The leprechaun starts by tossing a potato to one of the players in the circle and then keeps her eyes closed while the other players pass the potato around as quickly as they can.
• When she is ready, the leprechaun shouts "Shamrock!" and opens her eyes, and whichever player is holding the potato is out of the game.
• The goal is to toss the potato as quickly as possible so you can stay in the game.