Although the parade went on, we stayed home, warm, and dry.

Trying to find other than local news about the day, I could only find this https://shirleytwofeathers.com/The_Blog/pagancalendar/snake-saturday/#:~:text=Snake%20Saturday%20Parade%20%26%20Festival%2C%20celebrated%20on%20the,and%20charitable%20donations%20to%20benefit%20local%20non-profit%20organizations.

I'd never heard of the "holiday" before moving to the greater Metro. Since then, we've attended a few of the Northtown parades in addition to the traditional St Patrick's Day parade in downtown Kansas City, Missouri in the same years. My experience has been that most of the floats and marchers in both parades are the same. The downtown Kansas City St Patrick's Day parade (which we've attended more often) is pretty much a repeat of the Snake Saturday parade. Individual spectators and the route (different towns) is a bit difference between the two parades. However, that seems to be the main difference. Snake Saturday may be a more family friendly day because it's a small town event (with a big city parade) and has a lot of family friendly, community activities beyond just hitting the bars after the parade.

No matter what the weather, people from all over will gather in mass for both parades. Everyone becomes Irish for a day. Celebrating Irish roots is strong in this area with the two St Patrick's Day parades in March & 3 different Irish fests in the fall.

However, I'm a fair-weather type of gal and will skip standing (or sitting curbside) out in the bitter cold and/or rain for hours to watch a parade. If it's not rain free and warm, I won't be there. My husband is also only interested in these kinds of events if I want to go. Although a native-born New Yorker, he normally dislikes crowds. Even so, we have often enjoyed doing things together when exceptionally large crowds were involved. Things can't get much more crowded than the 2016 World Series KC Royals parade was: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/look-royals-world-series-parade-is-so-big-it-cripples-traffic/. Or the 2020 Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade: https://pbase.com/britestar/super_bowl_champions_2020 Well, that one was cold... Who knew that the Chiefs would win another Super Bowl just 3 years later? In early 2020, many (myself included) assumed a Super Bowl Parade in town might be a once-in-a-lifetime event for fans. So a little cold weather didn't keep people away. Prior to 2020, the hometown team had had a 50 year break between Super Bowl wins. But I digress.

St Patrick's Day (and the parades) come around every year. So, one can sit some out. To me, reoccurring events aren't as much fun in bad weather. However, others may feel differently. That's why some folks will go to a parade (or other outdoors event) rain or shine; no matter what the temperatures. However, I've gotten more selective with age & try to avoid bad weather like today.

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To celebrate St Patrick's Day early this year, I gave our dogs a new St Patrick's Day toy on Snake Saturday. That was our family's way of celebrating the day. Unfortunately, Bella and Bailey (above) had absolutely no interest in the new toy. Chile did play with it for a while before dropping it next to where Bailey was sitting. Bailey still wasn't interested in the toy, but it being next to her gave me a photo opt on a grey, dreary day. The image above was not posed. Chile later played with the Shamrock gnome some more. Guess, that's officially now Chile's toy. No one else cares anything about it.

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Snake Saturday is a celebration of St. Patrick when he drove the snakes out of Ireland. It is always celebrated the Saturday before St. Patrick's day. It is a Kansas City holiday. I don't know if it's actually celebrated anywhere else or not.

Of course, there probably were never any snakes in Ireland. Many, who celebrate paganism today, claim that the "snakes" were actually an ancient reference to pagans. That's an entire discussion in itself. Meanwhile, pagans still exist in Ireland. Most of modern St Patrick's Day celebrations have different meanings than things happened historically. It's now a time to celebrate Irish heritage and/or to just have fun.

Interestingly, leprechauns, added to Saint Patrick's Day celebrations, are pure pagan in origin. Some scholars say that the little "green men" originally were pagan idols symbolizing regeneration or regrowth. Historically, leprechauns were associated with spring equinox celebrations.