Given Jackson’s obsession with bagpipes, we were super excited for St. Patrick’s Day this year. He watches bagpipe parades on YouTube on a daily basis, so I made a list of all the possible festivities in the Chicago area that we could take him to see real bagpipers in person.
St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Chicago, of course, ended up being one of the first big events to get canceled as the coronavirus hit locally. We had been following the news out of Italy as the virus spread rapidly there, but it still felt very distant and it was quite a shock to hear the city canceled what is normally such a huge event in Chicago. Soon enough, all the suburbs followed suit.
Elmhurst, however, held their St. Patrick’s Day parade the weekend prior. We were none the wiser at that point, and happy to show Jackson some pipe bands in person. He was so excited to see them marching by — and begged us to follow them down the parade route. (Which we did — up and down the street again and again and again as more pipe bands continued to come throughout the parade.)
As it turns out, this was the last activity we participated in before going into quarantine mode!
