Ad Astra and Passover

This week, I will be appearing at Ad Astra as both a panelist and at a table with my books. Last year was my first time at Ad Astra, and I loved all the literary talk I was able to partake in, as well as all the fun people I was able to meet and hang out with. I love the local community of writers around here. As with last year, this year, Ad Astra and Passover overlap a bit. This means that my food options at the con will be limited (to say the least). But all this means to me is that I just have to be creative.

This year, my husband and I also hosted our first seder. Usually we spend one night at my parents' house, and one night at his. However, this year we moved the second seder to our place. One of the things that we decided to do was to find the perfect haggadah for our seder. Pretty much every seder  we have been to has used this one:

It's become tradition to use this book at our family seders, and the notion of using anything but seemed odd at first, but words are very important to me, and I wanted something inclusive, something that had all the songs, and something that could speak to everyone at our home. 
We also wanted one that wouldn't lose the kids, and that they could also grow with. For us, to have our whole family be a part of the seder was very important. And so, we went to the store to audition various books. After all, this book would set the tone for the evening and for subsequent evenings we would have. It took us the better part of the day to go through these books. What we wanted: all the songs, every prayer intact, language that spoke to us, the actual story of Passover (it's surprising how many haggadot did not have this), and it must look good. Brian wanted pictures.

​We looked at book after book after book. After a while, we finally settled on this one:

The funny thing was, we looked at this one, and the original one side by side and this one left nothing out. It followed the exact order of the seder as it should be, but it does it in a way that doesn't bog the evening down in what we felt was esoteric commentary. And what was great was that the kids had a lovely time with us. They were a part of everything. Now, as they can't read yet, we didn't give them the same book. As a little gift for them, we gave them these:

They love all things Sammy Spider. And while they gleefully sang the order of the seder, the four questions and (in Joseph's case howled) Dayenu, they got to look at the familiar cut out art of Sammy telling the story of Passover and telling everyone everything they've learned about the holiday. All in all, it was a perfect evening for us. And now, it's been a great week of matzah and fun, followed by what is going to be a great convention. See you at the Richmond Hill Sheraton!

Our set table

The kids being total hams

Hours of cooking later... Yum!