Passover starts tomorrow night and we are expecting about 20-25 people tomorrow and 20-25 for second night!

Passover has changed quite a bit since my nieces were born. As a kid, we used to go to Grandma M’s in Brooklyn, until we started having seder, the Passover meal, at mom’s house. The tradition was, mom, GES and I would go a few times during the week to help cook and then mom would stay there and dad, GES and I would drive to Brooklyn, stop for pizza and then head to grandma’s. There would be 20, sometimes more and we would laugh and laugh with the sedar and some [ha ha] food thrown in. It was wonderful, one year we even recorded the seder, it was great to listen to it years later.

As we got older, the seder moved to our house and mom and GES and I would do the cooking, grandma was responsible for the applesauce, we had a ‘thing’; she would make the applesauce and i would tell her it needed sugar, no matter how good it was, she expected it, who am I to disappoint a grandma? She also continued to make the multi-colored layered jello, yeah, not a huge favorite with all of us, but that was her thing and my cousin MS would “decant” the jello, the challenge was to get it coming out looking like the jello mold!  We still had about 20-25 people and there was sedar, laughter and food.

Speaking of food, soon I am going to post just the recipes we use for the seder, you can these recipes any time.

After my mom passed, we had seder at our house, there were less people and GES and I cooked all the food mom and grandma had made and taught us how to make. When EJ was born, and how convenient of her to be born right around Passover, we had seder at GES and AS’s house, what a blessing. We were about 8 people.

One of the things we enjoy, I know I speak for my sister, is inviting people to join us, the holiday is not only about food and laughter, but celebrating with friends and opening the door to welcome strangers, Elijah’s message to the T. There have always been people at the seder that were not related to us by marriage or blood and to share this time with them is not only a treat and a blessing, but a mitzvah. A mitzvah could be explained as simple as “doing a good deed” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitzvah].

Growing up, we used to follow the seder in the haggadah, the Passover prayer book, the funny part is, not everyone at the table had the same haggadah, that makes for an interesting sedar. My dad always had the ‘master’ haggadah, it had a kid “dunking” a bay chick, you had to be there and we all had the Maxwell House haggadah you got for free from the grocery store!

Now, we all go to GES and AS’s for Passover, and as you know, I’ve been here since Thursday for EJ’s birthday. Seder has grown as more and more friends of my sister and brother in laws have children, as I mentioned, we are expecting 20-25 people, that’s adults and children and we do an abridged version of seder. It used to take us about 4-6 hours from start to finish, now, seder takes about 30 minutes tops, [think Spongebob] still with all the good food, chatter and laughter, learning, messages and meaning.

It’s the togetherness, sharing the holiday and the moment, doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish or not, please join us, the door is open, the food is overflowing, the fellowship is overwhelming and the love is just right.

A zissen Pesach to you!