We Didn't Celebrate Easter This Year

This year my Knight and I felt very strongly not to celebrate Easter. Instead we celebrated Passover. To explain this whole revelation would fill a post all by itself so I will have leave that for another day. I can say from this day on we will be celebrating the Feasts of the Lord. It was just an awesome experience.

The boys transitioned well over to Passover. After explaining our feelings about the Holidays and the traditions of Passover they were surprisingly excited to experience this new experience. Our day was filled with cleaning the "chametz" (or none kosher foods) from our house and preparing the foods for the "Seder plate" and the Passover meal. The boys really enjoyed going to the store and buying all the kosher foods, especially the Lamb shank bone for the Seder plate.

We also took a trip to the Wine store and I bought red wine for Passover. After researching Jewish traditions I found out that Wine is the encouraged beverage and that Jewish families allow their children to partake of the wine on this evening. I should note they use small wine goblets and only fill to 1/3 of the glass is full.

So when evening came we were ready. On Thursday night (Actual Passover evening) one of our Pastors with our School Of Ministry walked us through the Passover meal and Seder plate. She also handed us a little booklet taking us through each step and prayer. Another great resource is Chabad.org. Most of my recipes and meal ideas came from this website.

Even in the midst this evenings spiritual impact the Passover in our household did have some lively, let's just say memorable moments. We were reminded of the National Lampoon's Christmas movie a couple times during the evening. The Father does have a sense of humor and I believe He took our sincerity and laughed with us times. It started with DK. He had been very tired already from a late evening the night before. I could tell he was running out of energy but at 6 he just won't take naps. When we finally sat down for Passover his eyes were very heavy. As my Knight started to recite one of the first lengthy blessings DK fell asleep and his head slipped off his hand and slammed into the table. Right off the bat we had to pray for his boo boo & kiss his head before we could get back to the blessing. He has quite the little goose egg on his head.

Then it came time for us to light the candle and my Knight began to read the prayer that follows. I was listening intently until I saw smoke rising from our booklet. Needless to say we set our Passover booklet on fire. Prayer interrupted again until the fire was out. During the Seder meal you consume exactly 4 glasses of wine. Very symbolic and cool but I just can't explain it all here. The problem we ran into is neither of us had had anything to eat since 7am and after three glasses of wine we started to feel it. No it isn't because we can't hold our liquor but you have to realize during the Seder meal you really don't eat anything. So here we are downing three glasses of wine on an empty stomach. Let's just say I am glad only our Passover booklet was set on fire. :) Next time we will remember to eat lunch.

To finish off the evening we had to partake of the bitter herbs which is represented by horseradish. Not something we like at all in the Livin' house but it is part of the tradition so we did take some. You are only supposed to take a little and mix it with an apple mixture, romaine and matzah. Unfortunately Rocker didn't listen very well and took a huge bite of it. He is our hates all textures and weird tastes child. Consequently he began to gag and basically vomited on his Seder plate. I just yelled "get to the bathroom and throw up, don't throw up on your Seder plate". That wasn't in the booklet at all.

We ended the evening with our fourth and final cup of wine and prayed our last blessing. Then we ate our Passover meal. Overall it was a great experience and the kids walked away with so much more wonder about our God and His Word. They were able to experience what Jesus did as a child and on His last Passover with His disciples (minus the banging of the head, setting things on fire, getting tipsy & vomiting out the bitter herbs).

Sunday became a day of nothing for us. We went to Burger King as a treat for me from the kids and my Knight for all the work I did the day before. We had Burger King all to our selves since no one else was there and then we headed out to the park. It was a great weekend. I highly recommend families participating in a Seder or Passover celebration at least once in their life just don't follow us step by step go get a good book about it. I will leave you with an bit of one of the prayers from the Seder. May each of you be blessed...

Praised be He, Oh Lord our God, King of the universe, Who gave us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season of joy.