Seder table setting

Decorating your Seder Table

Hello dear readers,

I know as much as anyone about the hundreds of details that go into planning and hosting a seder. There’s the menu of course, but also the cleaning, and making the preparations for yom tov (like setting the Shabbat timers on the all the lights), and of course making sure all the houseguests are taken care of.

But I’m sure you know all that already. Instead, I wanted to briefly touch on a small thing that can make a big difference: decorations!

Now, there are some holidays where decorating is a bigger priority: think of the art that goes into creating and hanging sukkah decorations, or the flower themes that remind us of Har Sinai on Shavuot. But pesach isn’t really a holiday where décor comes to mind.

From time to time our children like remind us of a seder we attended at a distant relative’s house, where everything was super fancy and formal. (They like to say that our relatives were all wearing tuxedos – they weren’t that fancy, but it did feel that way at times.) I like to keep things a little more fun and creative at the seder table. Of course, it all has to be clean first, and my darling husband always brings home a lovely bouquet of flowers before every chag, but themes can make it fun and educational! Remember one of the main ideas of Pesach – to engage children in the story of the exodus!

For years where we host two seders, the first seder’s theme is variable, but the second is always the TEN PLAGUES. (Other themes we’ve used for the first seder: ECHAD MI YODEAH, DAYENU, CHAD GADYA. Each has its fun parts, but none are nearly as much fun as the Ten Plagues.)

A big part of it is the wild animals, which you can use for place settings, a different animal for each guest. (My kids all have their own unique wild animals – armadillo, leopard and flamingo, but I’m not going to tell you which kid has which animal!). Toy frogs are also easy to get, but some of the other ones can be tricky. You can use eyemasks for darkness, and cow dolls with x’s over the eyes for pestilence.  I’ll write up some ideas for the rest for a later post, but until then you can use your imagination to fill in the rest.

This year we’ll be away on a kosher Passover vacation, so we won’t be decorating as much, so we’ll see what happens!

More soon,

Ariella

If you would like to learn more about kosher Passover vacations, contact Leisure Time Tours at 718-528-0700.


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