This year's Seder....

"That's a noise," grinned the Grinch,
"That I simply must hear!"
So she paused. And the Grinch put a hand to her ear.
And she did hear a sound rising over the tornado.
It started in low. Then it started to grow...

But the sound wasn't sad!
Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn't be so!
But it WAS merry! VERY!

She stared down at Who-ville!
The Grinch popped her eyes!
Then she shook!
What she saw was a shocking surprise!

Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without a proper table setting, no not at all!
She HADN'T stopped The Seder from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And the Grinch, with her grinch-feet ice-cold in the rain,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?
It came without fine china! It came without special linens!
"It came with paper, plastic, and HENS!"
And she puzzled for hours, `till her puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something she hadn't before!
"Maybe Seder," she thought, "doesn't have to be perfect!”
"Maybe Passover...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

And what happened then...?
Well...in Who-ville they say
That the Grinch's small heart
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute her heart didn't feel quite so tight,
Her attitude she adjusted and through the twilight,
She enjoyed her family! And the food for the feast!
And she...

...HERSELF...!
The Grinch served the grilled meat!

Here is the short version of what happened. First, I had the days mixed up. I KNEW the first night of Passover was on the 2nd, but for two weeks I also KNEW the 2nd was Tuesday night. I woke up Monday morning realizing my mistake, but I didn't get to worried about it because it is also traditional to have an other Seder on night 2... and the Rabbis long ago built a 'safety' net like that into Passover.

Then I forget to take the Turkey out of the freezer, until late Monday afternoon. I always buy fresh, but my mom, to help me out bought the frozen turkey. Well at noon this morning it was still frozen. Dirk, wonderful dh that he is goes down to the new butcher shop about a mile from the house to get fresh meat I can cook.... he comes back with two fryer hens. They are not fit for roasting so I cut them up and marinate them for a couple hours, thinking it is a pretty day grilling them will be nice.

Then as the day goes on, Athena and I are cooking and I discover no red wine in the house at all. No grape juice either, only sparkling apple cider! So, Dirk goes back out. While he is out I discover we don't the ingredients for Macaroons either. The store is totally sold out of them and the only cookie he can find with no flour does have butter, "oh well," I say, "we can live with that I guess." But inside I was starting to get very frustrated....

Now the dishes...the only dish we could find was the Seder Plate because I keep it hung up on the kitchen wall all year long! Elijah's cup, my special linens, the special dishes, candles, candle sticks, etc...none of it was in the hall closet where it should have been! The whole Seder box was gone. So we had to eat off paper and plastic.... now I was starting to get really grouchy!

I did say this was the short version right. Ok, to keep it short....the potatoes got over boiled so the mashed potatoes were much more like soup. Because it started to storm as the chicken went on the grill it took way too long and the asparagus got over cooked. Even when the chicken did come off the grill it tasted more smoked than grilled. Not bad, just not what I wanted.

When we finally sat down to begin (very late, but just before the sun would have been down if it weren't storming) I was ready for it to be over. I was going through the motions when I started to hear... Athena reading the Hebrew prayers, my sister reading for meaning instead of speed (like in the past), Nathan reading passages without being asked, everyone's laughter.... then the passage in our Haggadah that said you must have these three symbols to have a complete Seder....and I realized we had those three things (lamb bone, matzah, and bitter herbs) and much more. All the important elements were there in front of me.

I remembered too, about the Holocaust victims that had to celebrate Passover with saved scraps or nothing at all. Seder is about Freedom and that means freedom from being perfect too! I have been trying for a few years to write a play about the perfect Seder.... That one would probably not be nearly as powerful as one like this where everything went wrong, but God still made it right!