Yes, we are in the very festive season of Purim. Much hoopla is happening.

Quizzing David

On the way home from Sunday school last week, Rose and I quizzed David about the story of Purim. What happened to Vashti? Why did Haman want to kill all the Jews? What did Haman's hat look like? He kept begging for more questions because he was getting them all right.

Purim baskets

Wednesday was an early dismissal, so our friend and fellow craft maker, Maggie, came over. It suddenly occurred to us all to make Purim baskets and deliver them to the neighbors. I only know about this tradition from reading All In A Kind Family. It's not like I grew up doing this. But we love decorating bags, filling them with goodies, and surprising the neighbors. I particularly love how doing sweet things for your neighbors makes the neighborhood such a happy place. And when we got back from synagogue that night, we found a bag on our doorstep from Rebecca and Joel. Very sweet.

Groggers

The whole point of a grogger is to be loud. The rabbi reads the story of Purim aloud, and every time you hear the name of the bad guy--Haman--you wave your groggers and boo. David made a grogger in Sunday school, so the kids took that at their model and made more at home. It's amazing what you can do with toilet paper rolls, beads, and duct tape. Even better, they solved production problems like putting down a piece of paper so the beads didn't stick to the tape. I love that the kids are old enough to do multiple step projects on their own.

Hammentashen

Daddy made hammentashen with the kids. It was a two day project and involved the fascinating geometry of turning a circle into a triangle. It also involved apricot jam, nutella, and marshmallow fluff. With gluten free food like this, the other folks are missing out.

The megillah reading

Purim is the bacchanalia holiday, the Mardis Gras and Halloween of Judaism. Traditionally, you are supposed to get so drunk you can't tell the difference between the good guy and the bad guy. Our service didn't get that raucous, but the rabbi did set the tone by announcing you should keep your cell phones on. She then threw off her trench coat to reveal her glee cheerleading uniform and threw gum to the crowd. When I was kid, people only dressed up like the characters in the story--a pretty limited offering since no one wanted to be the bad guy or the banished queen. At services this year, I saw Spiderman, Pokeyman, clowns, and the entire cast of Glee. The wilder the better.

The service involved three short prayers, a shpiel, and the megillah reading. Shpiel, I think, means little play or skit. In this musical, various factions from Glee vied to have the best song. But all the songs were about Purim. My favorites were Esther to King Ahashuarus: If you like it, than you better a ring on it; I can't get no hammentashin, as if Mick Jagger were really jonesing for a bakery treat; and a tribute to the Monkees, He's a deceiver, referring to Haman; oh, how can I forget the 60's throwback singing, Hey Man?

For the megillah reading, which is the reading of the official story (though we did ours in English), they had a dozen people taking turns and many of them did accents. Rabbi Beth was a Valley Girl. OMG!

I thought it went on a bit long and very loud. (We were all given groggers.) But there was a bouncy house, hammentashen, and schnapps in the social hall. Rose loved it, and David decided he wanted to go next year.

The Purim Carnival

coming up on Sunday.