Passover is starting in a couple of days but we are doing our Seder a little early so that the whole family can be together. Sarah comes over on Friday to help me with the preparations for Saturday. She makes her outstanding macaroons and helps with the table setting. We have placecards held up by little frogs, our larger ceramic frog bank with parsley sticking out of its coin slot, and of course all the Seder paraphernalia. There’s also a display of our plague puppets that we made last year on the mantle. We are festive and ready to go!
Jon and family arrive and Sarah and Jon have some fun with the plague puppets. Sarah holds “Slaying of the First Born” up next to Jon. However, they decide on “Beasts” for Jon and “Darkness” for Sarah. All rather apt I think. Nathan and Sam busy themselves with Legos before dinner.
Sam also has time to work with Mommy and Auntie Leigh on some plague finger puppets.
And now it is time to begin. John says the blessings and lights the candles. We all drink the first glass of wine leaning on our left sides.
Now it is time for the first washing of the hands. Nathan takes the bowl of water and towel around to each participant.
Next we eat a Spring vegetable. Sam discovers that he loves parsley dipped in salt water and eats all the parsley on both Seder plates and then goes outside to cut some more.
After removing drops of wine from our glasses to signify each plague, we raise our second glass but do not drink from it. Sam seems to love the rules and tells everyone that they can raise their glass but they must not drink from it.
Nathan reads the four questions for the second year, John sings them in Hebrew to two different tunes. I think the kids are amazed at all the strange sounds coming from Zayde. It makes the whole celebration a little mysterious.
We have our wonderful festive meal of matzoh ball soup, boneless leg of lamb on the grill, mashed potatoes, green beans and the yummy macaroons. John bargains with Nathan and Sam to get the Afikoman back. They each get $20. We open the door to see if Elijah is out there. Nope. Finally we sit around singing songs. This has been the best Passover Seder yet!
