.63 St. Patrick’s Day’s chocolate gold coin deal at CVS

Need a deal on chocolate gold coins before St. Patrick’s Day this Saturday? If you have children at home who are expecting some “leprechaun magic,” head over to CVS this week to pick up what you need! Here’s what I spotted today in store.

Bags of Gold Emblem gold chocolate coins are on sale for $1.19 each, Buy 2 Get 1 FREE. When I scanned my CVS Customer Care card, I also got a coupon for $1.00 off 3 bags of candy? I wondered, “Do the gold coins count as a bag of candy? They’re in a bag.”

Sure enough, they do! Because you cannot use a coupon on a free item at CVS (and because my kids love hunting for lots of gold coins!) I bought six bags. Two were free, and the $1-off-3 coupon scanned just fine off three of the four bags I was paying for.

In the end, I paid $3.76 (plus tax) for six bags of gold chocolate coins — that’s about .63 per bag!

 

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And now, a little note on St. Patrick’s Day at the Cataldo house…

We Cataldos are not Irish — not on my side, not on my husband’s side. For two out of our three children, the idea of St. Patrick’s Day “celebrations” were met with shrugged shoulders and statements of “Hey, we’re not Irish” to our kids. (And yes, I know most of the people who wear green on the 17th aren’t Irish either, but you get the idea.) Neither of our families ever celebrated St. Patrick’s Day when we were kids, and we never celebrated with our older two children either. 

However,  when our youngest was in kindergarten, his kindergarten teacher told the entire class, on March 16th, that when they went home and went to bed that night, a leprechaun would come to their house and hide gold chocolate coins everywhere! My sweet son was overjoyed, and I’ll never forget the expressions my husband and I shared across the dinner table that night: What now?

A five-year-old’s world is filled with magic, and in a world that included Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, why wouldn’t a candy-bearing leprechaun  also seem like a welcome addition? I reiterated that again, our family was not Irish, and I was quite certain that a leprechaun would not come to our house that night. 

Night came and went. And, the next morning, of course… no leprechaun. 

My young son searched the house, crestfallen. He was so upset, and I guess we underestimated the impact his teacher’s statement had on him.

Then, I realized it would still be March 17th when my son returned home from school.

As soon as my son was off to school, I jumped in the car in search of chocolate gold coins. And, let me tell you, they are tough to find, especially on St. Patrick’s Day. After finding no success at two grocery stores, nor at Dollar Tree, I went to CVS Pharmacy. 

Did you know that CVS sells gold chocolate coins year-round? They’re usually found by the register with the candy bars, but around St. Patrick’s Day, the stores have them in the holiday aisle too. 

On this particular St. Patrick’s Day morning, I saw a small group of parents in the CVS aisle by the display of chocolate coins. Guess what this group of strangers was begrudgingly discussing? The fact that each of their children’s teachers promised a gold-coin-bearing leprechaun would come to their house. Like me, none of these parents had “made arrangements” for the leprechaun to visit their homes, and we were all in the same situation that morning, having been “coerced” to participate in the leprechauning due to despondent kids. We all agreed that this is something the schools probably should have given parents a heads-up on — especially since our two older children had attended the same elementary school and never received a promise of a leprechaun home visit.

(And parents of little ones… let this also be your heads-up that the leprechaun visit is indeed a thing some schools do promote..!)

When my son came home from school, he immediately told me how the leprechaun seemed to have gone to everyone else’s houses in his class, but not ours. He started naming off friends who’d gotten candy from the leprechaun, and I said “But look! When I got home this afternoon, the leprechaun had been here too!” And, of course, he was thrilled and ran around the house collecting coins. 

Five years have passed since that first leprechaun visit, and my youngest son of course now knows the actual origin of the gold coins on St. Patrick’s Day. That did not stop him from giving me a wink and a semi-ominous reminder today:

“Mom, St. Patrick’s Day is Saturday, and I still like the leprechaun to come.”

“This is your reminder. You have three days.”