Rosh HaShana

Happy new year. Sort of. It doesn't really mean anything to me, even after all this time, but it does kind of make sense. We always feel like the opening of the school year provides a new beginning -- perhaps never more so than as parents, when the kids finally get off the couch!

What with all those one-day weekends, Israelis really love an extra holiday, and this season provides quite a few. This week, Wednesday became the new Friday -- but on steroids. Fridays are days of frantic running around before the kids get out of school; but erev-hag (holiday eve) the kids don't even go to school and there's a whole lot more cooking and other preparations involved. The shopping for food has been going on all week, but on the eve of the holiday, when people are not working, they finally have time to think about all the presents they're expected to buy and the clothes they'll need for that evening. This is like Thanksgiving -- everybody's cooking and everybody's going somewhere, and at least the kids are expecting presents.

One year, when my in-laws were out of the country, we tried to find a restaurant on Erev Rosh HaShana. We felt like the biggest losers. And there was nothing open.

This year, despite my in-laws druthers, we all went to my mother-in-law's sister for dinner. Since my husband and his father are both only-children, and my mother-in-law has only one sibling, it's a very small family and Rosh HaShana or Pesach always include the usual suspects. The 3 of us, the in-laws, the sister and her husband, and their 3 kids, only one of which has kids herself, plus her aged mother-in-law -- 14 in all, 10 adults and 4 kids.

update ....
Usually these evenings are painfully boring, but one of the kids (not mine) provided a heap of comic relief this time. This 8-yr.-old kid is a rabid fan of Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team, and that night the team was playing Bayern, Germany in Israel, and he and his father were going to the game. He had me laughing throughout the meal with his loud commentary, though his parents must be used to it cause they didn't seem too amused.