Passover And Easter

...Continued from yesterday:
      My grandchildren have the benefit of having one parent of a Jewish background and the other raised with the Christian traditions.
       And so in their family they celebrate both Chanukah,

...and Christmas,

...as well as both Passover and Easter, as did Tom and I during our visit.
       On Saturday morning, March 31, the second day of Passover this year and the day before Easter, 

...our grand daughters told us the story of the biblical Ten Plagues upon Egypt that preceded the first Passover.

     On the shelf in the background is an afikomen holder our younger grand daughter  made at her preschool. The afikomen is a special piece of matzo eaten during the seder meal. 

     Then we blew out a dozen eggs,

...which I used in a recipe I found on the internet and wanted to try for healthy, low-caloire banana pancakes made only from eggs and mashed bananas. They were actually pretty dreadful,

...unless drowned in syrup. (When will I ever learn to stop falling for those too-good-to-be-true internet recipes?)

     Then we dyed the egg shells.

     That evening we attended the Second Night seder meal at the home of my son-in-law's parents.

    Some of us helped with the final preparations in the kitchen,

...while others helped by playing nicely in the living room.

     When all the guests had arrived we took our places at the table and the seder began.

     The Passover symbols.

     Each of us were given a copy of the Haggadah, the text used to tell the story of Passover and to explain the significance of the elements of the seder.

     We took turns reading from the  beautiful text,

...while we ate the traditional and symbolic seder foods,

 ...among which were  gefilte fish,

...a hard boiled egg in salt water,

...and a  delicious matzoh ball soup.

     The following day, Easter Sunday, my daughter and son-in-law hosted an Easter egg hunt and kosher brunch for about 30 children and adults.

     We started early preparing the  food,

...and setting up an obstacle course  in the backyard.

...with some friends arriving early to help with the preparations.

    The menu included scrambled eggs and a veggie scramble, fruit salad, popcorn, relishes,

...matzo with assorted toppings, including lox, regular and vegan cheese, cream cheese, hummus, sunflower seed butter, avocado,

...and a lovely tray of Passover sweets brought by one of the guests.

     At 10 am the guests began arriving,

...including Pinky's friend Sneakers.

     When everyone had arrived,

...and understood what they were supposed to do,

...the hunt was on, outdoors,

...as well as indoors.

    When all the eggs were found we moved on to the next activity, which was a raffle,

MC'd by my daughter,

...for which each young guest was given a strip of five tickets.

      It had been arranged that each guest would end up winning a prize,

...from the trove of treasures we'd gleaned from the Dollar Tree, the biggest hit among  which turned out to be the whoopee cushions, which continued to be a source of entertainment for the duration of the party.

      When a person's ticket was picked they chose a prize and then reached into the bag to  choose the next winning ticket.

    My daughter kept the raffle moving along,

...and the crowd entertained.

       After the raffle the guests spent the rest of the day playing,

...eating, socializing,

...and relaxing.

     And so the the kosher Easter brunch went on until about 5:15 pm when the last guests left, though they'd  have stayed longer if my daughter and son-in-law hadn't had tickets for that evening's L.A. Clippers game.
     I, of course, invited the guests to stay longer, have some more food, watch some more TV,

...but the time had come.

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