I’m not fully Jewish. My dad is the Jew. My mom was raised Catholic. We celebrate both major holidays of each tradition. Our gatherings are always small.
My family has a lax way of celebrating the holidays. Mommy’s side of the family all lives in England (she’s British) and Daddy’s side of the family all lives in Boca Raton (he’s a New York Jew), so most holidays it’s only my parents, my brother, my sister, and me. Now, holidays will often include my boyfriend (party time!). Before that it was just the 5 of us eating alone during Christmas dinner, Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving, Passover, Easter brunch, even July 4th. That’s not to say it didn’t have it’s moments. We didn’t have to dress up. I wore pajamas and often by the end of the dinner we were all making inappropriate jokes about…well…you don’t want to know.
Since we had such small family gatherings, we altered the meals to fit our desires. We had the basics, but we got to mix it up a bit. If there was a traditional item that we didn’t like, we scrapped it. Yet, there was one thing my mom always kept on the Seder menu that I didn’t understand.
Gefilte fish.
DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!
