For weeks, we've been looking forward to the Star Wars themed Purim Schpiel. For those of you who aren't Jewish or don't join in on all the Jewish holidays because why not, Purim is the liberation/drink a lot/bacchanalia festival (as opposed to Passover the liberation/drink a lot/take it very seriously festival.) We dress up like it's Halloween; we're supposed to drink so much that we can't tell the name of the good guy from the bad guy; we do a little skit retelling the story of Esther who saved the Jews from the plot of wicked Haman; and we eat cookies shaped like Haman's hat.

John made the cookies Sunday. Prune and poppy are the classic flavors, but John made three types of chocolate hamantashen: apricot jam, marshmallow fluff, and nutella. Yeah, great. David had a fabulous time at the Purim carnival, winning a door alarm and a magic wand that seems to play a game loudly. Rose had a busy time because she now is old enough to run a booth, and, as we all know, that's exhausting work. I missed the carnival for the first time and had a lovely walk in the rain with a friend.

But, I was not going to miss the schpiel. Except David had a melt down five minutes after we were supposed to have left. A melt down like we haven't seen for years. I think it has something to do with changing his mind about his costume (the blow up stay puff man from Ghostbusters). Costume choices are going to be the death of me. We eventually made it to synagogue slightly late, and once we found seats with Uncle Dan and got our own set of foam light sabers (the kids) and a shot of marshmallow vodka (me), everything was great.

The schpiel was absolutely hilarious. It's hard to describe the level of silliness. "These are not the Jews you're looking for" was a typical line. Bad puns, strained connections between the Purim story and Star Wars, Chewy spewing garble, the rabbis dresses as droids beeping into the mic, Darth Haman singing his own anthem as he walked off stage. . .I totally entered into the spirit. As did the kids. It's fun to break all the rules. I even got to take pictures in the sanctuary.

It lasted exactly an hour, which is great for all the little kids that were there (the synagogue was full) and great for us because both kids had projects they wanted to finish when we got home. Last year the Frozen purim, this year Star Wars, I can't wait to see what they come up with for next year.