If you're here to get a blog post full of ideas on how to enhance your Passover 2020 coronavirus quarantine lockdown seder, well you're in the wrong place.
Let's Be Honest, are we in the "mood" to have Passover at all?
I guess the same applies to Easter 2020-- Are we mentally feeling the immense excitement of celebrating a holiday alone, on an electronic device, away from family and loved ones? Full disclaimer, I am not sharing Easter advice here since I am Jewish and don't have any information aside from dying Easter eggs and eating chocolate.
Meme credit: Jewthings
This coronavirus, covid19, has everyone shut indoors and it's so lonely!!!
Ok, no need to kvetch to you-- the entire world is in the exact same position as you and me.
Isn't that so strange-- the entire world!
So we complain and we freak out, have a little cry, but we also pick ourselves up and say, "Ok, I've got this!" Like my cousin, Diane, in Colorado says, "put on my big girl underpants, lift up my chest and go on!"
So, what about Passover 2020.
Let me put the elephant-in-the-room-questions out there for the web to see:
What about the mom who is home all alone?
The grandpa who isn't stepping outside during the virus?
What will they do this Passover?
Does God excuse one from not celebrating?
This is heart-breaking.
What are your plans?
What are you cooking?
What about the seder?
Who is leading?
Who is organizing?
Are we excused from celebrating?
From keeping the holiday?
Do we try to do the best we can?
Do we try at all?
I have a gazillion questions and no answers. Not a single one.
OMG--I'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE!
(yes, another freak out for a moment)
We always celebrate the first night of Pesach at my mother's house. She does the cooking, we bring a side-dish and the complaining. I show up to set the table and hear the complaining. Then everyone leaves, even the lady she hires to wash the dishes and I stay to help with the dishes, and she complains the rest of the week how she is never doing this again.
I guess this year she won't have to.
Ok-- so let's dive into what are the plans for the hopefully once in a lifetime Passover seder:
The first step, what are you making? (what do you have available in the market is more like it)
There are so many great online Jewish chefs, cookbooks, and blogs. Here's a nice cookbook, if only Amazon would enable 2-day prime once again... (remember the good ole days when you could get things in 2 days?)
Naomi Nachman Passover Recipes
Matzah Ball Soup Brit + Co Recipes for Passover
You might have to search this year for online Passover recipes.
Because you know, nothing beats a bowl of hot steaming matzah balls and chicken soup for Passover!
Side note: did they ever check the healing qualities of chicken soup against covid19? That would be a great experiment.
Side note #2: have you ever had the displeasure of eating rock hard, sink to the bottom of the bowl mitzvah balls? It isn't tasty at all.
My cousin Cathy, she passed this year, made the BEST soup ever! She would bring this huge blue speckled pot of steaming soup and we'd all get these fluffy matzah balls. You didn't even need to put salt in the soup when no one was looking, she made it perfectly. Oh man, I will miss her and her soup.
Seriously, are you in the mood to bake all of the family's traditional foods?
What about the kids who expect to find the afikomen and get fun gifts? Gone.
I did read on the JewishBoston's online site about their Top 10 Tips for Creating a Virtual Seder.
You might find some enlightening ideas there. The images on the page are really strange-- if you understand why the twins shaking back and forth are there to depict a Haggadah, can you please let me know.
Another how to host a Passover seder alone list of ideas can be found on Jta.org.
As this blog post is digressing more and more into how to bury yourself in a cup of Manishevitz wine instead of fun and thoughtful information, I will close with a funny picture of our Passover seder plate eggs in 2019 and how it will look in 2020.
2019 personal seder plates with blue egg
2020 Passover Style Eggs photo: Lital Rozenshtal
Oh, and if you want to cheer up the family while on your zoom call and follow one of the top 10 ways to spruce up your online Passover Seder you can always wear a matzah dress.
Matzah dress reads: Matzah woman, Matzah good.
Of course, Alef Bet is offering virtual hostess gifts in the form of gift cards you can email your hostess with the mostess from last year and say, "I knew you'd invite us this year to your seder, but we can't make it due to unusual world crisis circumstances."
Gift Certificate for Hostess Gifts
We shouldn't joke, we shouldn't laugh.
I told you not to expect much from this blog post on how grim and dismal Passover seder 2020 is expected to be.
I hope never to do this again and don't plan on it, so what about you?
How do you feel this covid19 Passover 2020 year?
Oh, and happy Passover if I didn't say so before.
Stay healthy, be safe, be strong and I hope we'll look back on this year in 2053 when you're finishing up the last of your toilet paper bought in 2020, and smile.
-Alissa