Read by Matilda Longbottom

If Kermit the Frog could pick a favorite month, I bet it would be March. After all, March is a month of green. Think about it—how many green-themed events happen in March? How many of them do you celebrate? For me, March is all about green. You’ve got Saint Patrick’s Day, the start of Spring, and basketball with my team, the Celtics, hopefully on their path to the playoffs.

Let’s start with Saint Patrick’s Day on March 17th. What a complete celebration of green this is! Shamrocks, cabbage, green eggs and ham—anything and everything green is fair game. Like many holidays, this day celebrates a saint—in this case, Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland and the man credited with bringing Christianity to the Irish people. Saint Patrick was a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop. His ties to the church were strong: his father was a deacon, and his grandfather was a priest. In Ireland, Saint Patrick devoted his life to converting pagans to Christianity until his death on March 17th. Today, Saint Patrick’s Day is a celebration of all things Irish. There are parades, festivals, feasts, and people dressed in green, with shamrocks as far as the eye can see. Some cities even dye their rivers green! But why shamrocks? Saint Patrick is said to have used the three-leaved shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagans. And why green? The color green has long been associated with Ireland, often because of its lush, rolling hills, which earned it the nickname “the Emerald Isle.”

March is also the start of Spring. I can’t be the only one who gets excited to see the first hints of green sprouting from the soil. This year, the Spring equinox occurs on March 20th, marking the astronomical beginning of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere (and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere). The word “equinox” comes from the Latin words for “equal night.” On this day, the length of day and night is nearly equal across the globe. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this marks the time when daylight starts to last longer than darkness—a reason to celebrate if ever there was one! While March may come in like a lion, bringing snow to many regions, it often goes out like a lamb. As the snow melts, it nourishes the ground, allowing tender green buds to emerge and blanket the landscape.

I also happen to be a huge Celtics fan. While the NBA playoffs don’t start until April, March is when the players really gear up. They fight for the best positioning and seem to play at their peak. For years, my husband and I have made it a tradition to celebrate our anniversary by attending a Celtics game at the end of March. We wear our green, grab a giant foam finger, and cheer on our favorite players.

As March arrives, you might catch me humming along to Joe Raposo’s song “Bein’ Green,” sung by Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog. But I happen to think that, just maybe—even if it’s only for this month—it’s a great thing to be green. ❖