Friday, March 24

caution: entering holiday season

Now that Purim is behind us, Pesach [Passover] is imminent. It's one of the two high points of the year of holidays, very much like Christmas Eve in the western world in terms of family gathering and need-to-be-with-a-group, ANY group, just not alone. This one is special though because it drags on for a week of tedious dietary rules, making it difficult to buy many items one wants in a grocery store, or order regular food at a restaurant. (The other high point is the "High Holidays" of Rosh HaShana [new year of the Jewish calendar] and Yom Kippur.)

We're charging into the inevitable circle of the holidays, each with its own special gimmick --Succot: eating in huts; Hanukah: jelly donuts and latkes [potato pancakes]; Tu B'shvat: dried fruits and nuts; Purim: costumes and triangular, filled cookies called "Haman's Ears" in Hebrew; Pesach: matza instead of bread for a week; Shavuot: cheesecake and cheese blintzes; Yom Ha'atzmaut [Independence Day]: afternoon barbecue ["mangal"]; Lag B'Omer: evening campfire; Rosh HaShana: new year, white clothes, worrying about one's fate in the book of life; culminating in Yom Kippur: fasting.

Even secular types go along with the gimmicks. Probably many find the repetitive framework comforting. Every specialty food in its rightful season. I just like the days off work.

I didn't miss the holiday routines and foods at all when I was in Toronto for two years. It was a relief, frankly, to have all those expectations removed. Around here, it seems to me most people just follow the customs by rote, with no feeling involved. One does it because one simply does; one goes along to look "normal". When you're part of a big family, the duties are very real and seriously problematic to avoid. Fortunately, I was smart enough to marry into a very small family: Mr. Squarepeg is an only child, and so is his father; and his mother has just one sister.

My mother-in-law and her sister had a Peach arrangement that worked for a couple of decades, where they would take turns hosting the seder. But the sister's family kept growing, with two of the three children married and producing offspring (and in-laws), while our family with one son, wife and grandchild (and in-laws far away) remained static. My mother-in-law is too tired now to host the whole song and dance with that big brood, and therefore doesn't want to attend her sister's seder either. If I were a completely different sort of daughter-in-law, I'd probably take on the mantle, but that will never happen. Last year, just my in-laws came to have a modest seder at our place (and brought most of the food, as usual). They told her sister that they would be out of town, staying at a hotel, to avoid the unpleasant family fallout. We haven't discussed what we're doing this year, so I don't know what's going to happen. We'll have to do something -- doing nothing is unthinkable, like pretending Christmas Eve isn't happening -- but it's sure to be pretty quiet.

And before all that, we get a very special holiday-off-work that involves no special food or gimmicks: Next Tuesday is Election Day, and all businesses are closed. Woo-hoo!

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