27 Jan 11 St. Patrick’s Day and the Chicago River

Buying party supplies and decorating your house in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day is great, but the city of Chicago takes the party decorations idea and runs with it. For the past forty years, Chicago has dyed the Chicago River green in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. This is not to say that they dye it slightly green, or maybe an off-green – the city dyes it fluorescent green, making it look more scary than celebratory.

Chicago supplies their party with a green river, what about you?

To ensure that you don’t have nightmares about the thousands of organisms living within the river, the dye used to change the color of the river is completely safe and not harmful. It is a special blend of ingredients and forty gallons of vegetable oil, like food coloring for a massive body of water. Regardless, what’s the point of this story and what does it have to do with party supplies? Creativity, my friends, it’s all about the limits of your own imagination.

Celebrating a holiday, whether it is St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, or Christmas, entitles you to creative freedom with your party decorations and party supplies. You may view your limitations as conventional, such as finances, theme, access to party decorations, but this is no truer than saying “a whole river is incapable of being dyed green.” The human mind is a powerful tool that enables you to branch out from your traditional party decorations. This idea of breaking your mental paradigm is known as divergent thinking, and you need to start applying it to all of your parties.

There is a huge difference between a great party and a memorable one. A great party leaves the guests feeling satisfied, but a memorable one leaves them with a story, something they can tell others for years. As the host, you are the epicenter of creativity and creation for your party supplies and the party environment. If you normally view this responsibility as stressful, stop – it’s time for you to start having fun with your party planning. When your guests know that you had fun decorating the party, they can feel it. It’s infectious, like a disease, but a happy one.

The next time you start planning out a party, remember the Chicago River and its unnaturally green shade of celebration. It may be the perfect silly thought to get you into the creative mood.