Quick and Easy Tips for Surviving the High Holy Days

Let’s face it. The high holy days are not always as exciting for our kids as we wish they were. It’s a lot of sitting in synagogue and the rest of the traditions can seem a bit nebulous for children.
Here are some quick tips for making the holidays exciting and interesting.

1. Buy something new to wear to synagogue. Do your kids need a new hairbow, socks, shoes, necklace, hat, kippah, etc? Probably not (mine don’t!). But the exciting air of “something new” can make it all feel more special. Plus it’s a chance to say shehecheyanu together.
2. Start now collecting food for the High Holy Day food drive. Make it an event. Let your kids pick out one or two special items to bring. Make an event out of delivering them to the Temple.
3. Try a new food. One idea: pick up one or two pomegranates and open them up with your kids. Pick or buy apples and make applesauce or baked apples.
4. Too old for babysitting, seems too young for the regular services? Give the grownup services a try but know that you will have to help your kids along. Give them tasks during the service: English readers: count the number of A’s or the time the word “king” appears. Hebrew readers: count the number of aleph’s or other words in the prayers. How many people are wearing blue? How many people have blonde hair? Your kids can bring a sticker book or reading book – it’s okay!
5. Make the Rosh Hashanah meal interesting – decorate the table with honey bears, flowers, apples, and have your kids make “Happy Birthday to the World” banners or placemats.
6. Check out some library books about the holidays and read them before they start. This will give your kids something to look forward to.
7. Come to Rabbi Steve’s Shofar Blowing Workshop. A great hands-on activity. Take a picture of your kid with their shofar.

Building Our Sukkah

It is customary that, as soon as Yom Kippur ends, we begin to put up our Sukkah for the holiday of Sukkot. Sukkot is the "Festival of Booths," a harvest festival for which we build and "dwell in" small huts (usually in our backyards) to recall the wandering in the desert, during which we were transient and dependent upon God for our welfare. It also serves to remind us of those who don't have homes and are in need of our assistance. It is definitely one of my favorite holidays, it's a week long and I love building our sukkah.

This year, we put up a new sukkah, thanks to my dad (hi dad). He was tired of helping us put up our old one, which was great but very difficult to assemble each year. He created this new sukkah, which is so easy to put together, and as you'll see from the pictures below, so light that even my son can carry the parts!

Celebrating Shabbat without TV?

When David (now 5 1/2) was young, we told him he could only watch tv on Shabbat. When we'd visit my parents, they would let him watch tv whenever he wanted, which coined the phrase in our house: "it's always Shabbat at Bubbie and Zeyde's house!" (It raised problems for us one Shabbat that we spent with an Orthodox family. In their house, no tv on Shabbat!)

Now we don't do that anymore. He's old enough to know that there is tv available on other days of the week....and he likes to watch it. But we learned that it is possible to be non-traditional in your observance of Shabbat and make the day very special.

So now we struggle with some special thing to define Shabbat in our house, other than our Friday night dinner activities. I would like something special to do or not do on Saturday as well. I think that this may become easier as my children grow older. It's hard to explain to a 2-year-old and it's hard to be consistent in our house when mommy works on Shabbat!

How does your family observe Shabbat? What are some non-traditional traditions that you've developed to make this day special? Leave me a comment!