Passover '2023

 PASSOVER 2023

runs  April 5th through April 13th

As we have in the past, we had a seder on the first evening and attended Central Synagogue's live-streamed service, From that evening and throughout the remainder of the holiday we abstained from eating any leavened bread for the remainder of the holiday celebrated each day with menu items based around one of the ten plagues mentioned in the bible.

E.g. for the plague of hail. we had boiled eggs for breakfast, matza ball soup for lunch, roasted meatballs, baby potatoes, and Brussels sprouts for dinner.

Pharaoh and his army

Throughout the holiday as we recalled each new episode of the struggle to get the Pharaoh to free the Hebrews from slavery,  we used props (like frogs, flies, and locusts)  and a set of hand-painted peg dolls to reinforce the story.

Moses, Aaron, the Pharoah, the Pharoah's family and army, and props for the plagues

On the last day of Passover, the entire set of twelve tribes 

were marched across a parted Red Sea 

toward

the Promised Land.

As a  side note,  we are well aware that none of the activities listed above are required or even mentioned by Jewish law or custom ( but neither are they prohibited).  We began acting out  the story of the exodus when the COVID pandemic prohibited us from socializing with others, and we found the dioramas and props to make telling of the story so much more relatable that we decided to make them a Passover tradition in our home.  

The Fourth Night of Chanukkah, 12'22

 

On the Forth Night of Chanukkah 

my true love gave to me

 a plate of 4 potato latkes, with sour cream, and applesauce

to be eaten

by the light of

four candles glowing

on the menorah. 

It doesn't get much more romantic than that!

Candle lighting on the Third Night of Chanukkah: 12 '22

 

Chag Sameach, Happy 2nd Night of Chanukkah: 12 '22

Chag Sameach!

Happy Second Night of Chanukkah

And for dinner we had 

prime rib, corn, and baked potato puffs with 

and apple dumplings for desert.

Happy First night of Chanukkah: 12 '22

 This year, Chanukkah falls, as it often does, right atop the Christmas Holiday

In 2022, the first of the eight days of this important Jewish Holiday

 starts at sundown on December 18th 

and runs through to end at sundown on December 26th.

On each of these nights, we light a candle on the menorah 

and recite a prayer from a prayer book  Bruce has carried with him for all of his adult life.

Then we have a feast. 

at our Chanukkah decorated table

The Tree and all its trimmings are up : 12 '22

Our Christms tree is  finally up and spreading cheer and goodwill  throughout the house.

Everything seems to be moving in slow motion this year. We had all the indoor trimmings out and waiting to put up on our Xmas tree by December 1st.   It was just that we were halfway through the month of December, (and almost into the first night of Chanukkah), before we finally found where we had stored our Christmas Tree.  

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas: 12'22

 We usually have the front of our home decorated for Christmas by December 1,

This year rain (and other matters beyond our control) conspired to delay the process.

It took us a while to locate all the ornaments we brought from Pawleys Island,

and a while longer to decide how to best display them in our much larger front yard,  

But now we have found places for them all in our new home.

I must say we are very pleased with the way 

the display turned out.

Thanksgiving Dinner 11'22

    Thanks iving Dinner for 2022

was

Roast Duck

Herbed Stuffing with  Mushroom Gravy 

Green Beans  with mushrooms and fried onion crisps

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Cranberry Orange Compote

followed by 

Pumpkin Pie  l mode 

(The pie is  not shown

because we were too full to eat it)

Getting ready forThanksgiving in our new home 2022

There's a Thanks giving party happening in our front yard

nd everyone is  welcome

Even Tom Samoset is back to greet you!

 

Black Calla Lily

My Black Calla Lily

 I've seen photos of Black Calla Lilies for sale online,

but assumed that the photos of the plant were photo-shopped.

Callas would never be black, I thought!

Then this beauty showed up in the florist section of my local Food Lion.

I stand corrected.

The flowers are a deep maroon color, which at a distance,  

look quite black against the plant's green leaves.

It's the perfect flower for Halloween.

Guinness Challah Bread, 10 '21

Guinness Challah

 I tried making  Guinness Challah today, and both Bruce and I loved the way the loaf turned out.

I  followed the recipe from below, except that I cut the ingredients' measurements in half so that I only made one loaf, and instead of egg white, I basted the loaf with melted butter and sprinkled dried parmesan cheese and coarse salt atop the loaf just before baking.

 The result was a  wonderful rustic-looking loaf with a sourdough-like textured bread with a  crusty top, and a wonderful taste, and aroma.  This one is likely to become a standard on our table.

For Recipe see:  https://www.shemakesandbakes.com/home/guinness-challah?fbclid=IwAR1Pn-1YfMm7cDWWVoQv-25xj21MUr73QF80RUJwoJfXrDfXB89Cvdx-4pM

Halloween Exterior Decorations: 10'21

 

Decorating the outside of our home is proving challenging this year.

Our HOA has two different contractors working on two different projects both in our front yard,  and in the back of our home.  I was able to hang ghosts and lights around the front porch, but I had to wait a couple of days until the contractor complete before I could put any other decorations in the front yard.

Usually, we set up a lot of ghosts in the front yard flowerbeds, and arrange a pumpkin patch with scarecrows in the back yard, but this year, it is not at all certain that the contractor's working on the back of the house will be complete the project by Halloween. 

Ultimately,  we decided to place

most of the scarecrows into the front yard.

How much of any of the back yard, and sunroom will get decorated will depend upon whether the contractor moves the building supplies out of those areas before the holidays are over. 

Halloween is coming: 10'21

 As soon as Sukkot ended, my attention turned to  Halloween. 

Its' always been my favorite holiday of the year,

 and  

I always look forward eagerly to the first day of October when I can bring my collection of seasonal decorations out of storage.     Opening each storage box feels like I am like having a reunion with an old friend. 

I have years and years of  Fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving decorations carefully labeled and stored in the attic.   Many of them are generic enough that, with a little rearrangement,  I can keep utilizing them across the entire fall season.

Our 2021 Halloween Door Wreath

For example, I have a lot of fall foliage, that can be mixed with Spooky signage to form a Halloween wreath.

 

Our 2020 Thanksgiving Door wreath

Or, the signage can be swapped out for a  scarecrow for use at Thanksgiving.

Or, the foliage can be mixed with a crow for some indoor seasonal color. 

You get the idea, how this works.

The first order of the day was to decorate the inside of our home. With distributing the Fall foliage around the great room insuring that there were cheerful bits of bright Fall colors everywhere.

Then I started adding  black candles,

black cats, 

and other  Halloween accents

everywhere space allowed.

e.g. A Witches hat hangs on the banister and 

the Lil' Boos and Ghouls Room had their own greeters.

Some areas got special attention.

But the Dining room table is the start of the season.

Bats hang from the chandelier,

And each table setting 

has its own set of 

skulls and bones.

Easter Dinner Celebration: 4 '21

 

We dressed up and had a formal Easter Sunday dinner in our dining room this evening.

The most difficult part of the whole event was trying to time the event. We had to wait until after sundown (sundown 4/4) marks the official end of the 2021 Passover Holiday),

to remove the Red Sea,

and the Twelve tribes of Israel from our dining room table so we could use the table for our Easter dinner.

And a Happy Easter to all! 4 '21

 As I mentioned in our  3/27/21 post, the dates for celebrating Passover and Easter overlap this year.  Rather than having it look like Moses and the 12 tribes were shepherding and a flock of rabbits through the Red Sea, we decided to separate the two holidays by decorating the inside of the house for Passover and placed our Easter ornaments in the front yard.

                                        Easter bunnies figured prominently.

They started at the front door

And continued hopping all the way out to the street 

( and everywhere in between).

 Plastic Easter eggs in baskets of brightly colored pansies

added  color and gaiety to the area

(Which was much needed  after last week's frost

 damaged a lot of our spring blooms.)