A little more than a month ago, those people lucky enough to have a partner got to hear the rest of us bitch and whine about Valentine’s Day. “It’s over-commercialized.” “It’s too exclusionary.” The validity of the holiday was challenged by people who claimed that Hallmark had more invested in the holiday than the Catholic church.

Worry no longer, holiday purists: St. Patrick’s Day is here!

Between heart-shaped-box-of-chocolates day and giant-creepy-chocolate-egg-hiding-rabbit day, St. Patrick’s Day is a beacon of pure Catholic tradition shining forth in viridian and emerald glory.

Just kidding. The traditional Irish dinner of corned beef and cabbage was long ago replaced with green beer and whiskey as the preferred method for celebrating all that is Irish, at least on college campuses.

The story of St. Patrick is intertwined with facts and myths. What is known for certain is that he was kidnapped as a child and taken to Ireland. After escaping and finding his calling as a missionary, he decided to return to the island of his captivity and convert the non-believers.

He was quite successful. St. Patrick is credited with establishing Catholicism’s foothold on the island and building a number of monasteries. The two most famous St. Patrick legends are the sermon from the hilltop that eradicated the island of its snakes (a metaphor for the conversion from paganism) and his use of a shamrock to teach the idea of the Christian Holy Trinity to his converts.

Now we celebrate the man, the myth and Ireland.

People will tastefully hang shamrock cutouts over doorways and adorn dinner plates with home-cooked corned beef. On campus, the story will be a little different.

Some argue that Valentine’s Day is pointless. But if St. Patrick’s Day ever had a point, it has largely been forgotten. Almost as shamelessly as we use Valentine’s Day to promote chocolate and rose sales in the name of love, college kids will use St. Patrick’s Day as an excuse to imbibe Irish libations in the name of faith and celebration.

Look no further than our own Harris Teeter, where Guinness and Harp – traditional Irish stouts and lagers, respectively – were both recently put on sale.

Sure, many students are not old enough to drink, and many others will simply choose not to partake. That being said, it is hard to miss the economic drive fueled almost exclusively by breweries.

The commercialism of St. Patrick’s Day will shine on campus. In honor of St. Patrick and Ireland, the “of age” population will surely imbibe in green stouts and beers.

Valentines Day and St. Patrick’s Day are two of a kind. Originally good-natured religious holidays, the two have now been appropriated by American consumerism.

It could be worse, I guess. It’s hard to deny that today will be, as the old ads say, “a good time for a Guinness.