Last Wednesday night was the first night of Passover. As usual, we attended Josh’s second cousin Diana’s seder. I had been looking forward to this all year. Passover is my second favorite holiday. I love the traditions, stories, and ceremony of it. And the fact that drinking four glasses of wine is a requisite part of the seder doesn’t hurt.

The exodus story was always my favorite bible story when I was little. You have to admit that the ten plagues are super cool. I think that must be where my love of Jews came from. I always thought that I should be Jewish and belonged in a Jewish family. Unfortunately for me, my parents are Irish and Mexican: totally Catholic. But, by marrying a Jew, things worked out for me in the end.

This was Eleanor’s second Passover and she did a much better job of sitting through the seder, no fussing and no falling asleep like last year. And after dinner, although she is no longer the youngest in the family, she got to find the afikomen again this year.

She traded it to Diana for an even better prize than the inflatable matzo ball she got last year, a set of Ma Nishtana finger puppets.

Each puppet symbolizes one the four questions, with one side of the puppet representing “this night” and the other side showing “all other nights.”

My favorite is the comfy armchair with pillow/regular chair. Grandpa Gross demonstrated the Karpas for Eleanor. I think she was a little confused.

I apologize for the miserable photo quality in this post.  My poor camera is not powerful enough to get a decent photo in low light without a flash.  Here is a super flashy family photo. I only included it because I love Eleanor’s expression. What is she looking at that is so shocking? Maybe she saw Elijah.

p.s. Did you hear that President Obama was the first President to host or even attend a seder while in office? Awesome!