Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................3 Passover – Assemble Mini-Seder Plates....................................................................4 Shabbat – Create a Shabbat Kit.................................................................................6 Purim – Leave the Rolling Pin in the Drawer.............................................................8 Rosh Hashanah – Hint: It Involves a Snack Food!...................................................10 Hanukkah – Create a Hanukkah Centerpiece...........................................................12 More Fun Stuff from Jewish Holidays in a Box........................................................16 Introduction Here are five of our favorite kid-friendly, holiday-friendly, time-friendly tips for celebrating Jewish holidays with your family. Let us know which one you like best. Enjoy! 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 3 Passover – Assemble Mini-Seder Plates I lead our family Seder – and I am under “strict” orders to keep it short! One way we do this is by creating mini-Seder plates for everyone. To engage the kids and to make it a great learning-by-doing opportunity, we get the components together first. Then we invite all the kids in the house to build an individual mini-seder plate for everyone who will be with us for dinner. We use small paper plates (easy to toss before dinner) which are also simple to cover with plastic wrap and keep chilled in the fridge – so this doesn’t have to be done immediately before the Seder. Here’s what we prepare: · Parsley (washed and torn into individual batches) · Charoset (the wine, apple, nut mixture) 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 4 · Half a hard-boiled egg · Celery · Gefilte fish · Maror (either bottled horseradish – red or white – or little strips of raw horseradish root) As the kids assemble the plates, we talk about what the symbols mean. Having these little plates achieves several goals: 1. When it’s time to dip parsley, we don’t have to wait for one big plate to get passed around the table. Everyone is already ready. We do pass the salt water which we put into little bowls at each end of the table. 2. We also “nosh” on the egg, celery, and gefilte fish well before dinner, by building a snack break into our Seder when we get to the third step, Karpas. This little trick has been a huge help in keeping spirits high. (And I’m not just talking about the kids!) For more tips, check out “ Celebrate Passover: How to Plan a Fun, Simple Seder,” our downloadable guide full of ideas to make it easier for you to host a Seder. You might also enjoy our Passover Seder Steps Follow-Along activity – perfect for before or during the Seder. 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 5 Shabbat – Create a Shabbat Kit You know the famous TV commercial where the actor hits himself on the head and says, “I could have had a V8?” Before I created our Shabbat Kit, I had to run around to three different rooms to assemble the basic components to light candles on Friday night. Now, instead of grabbing the candlesticks from the dining room, the candles from the pantry, the challah cover from a drawer in the hall, I keep everything in a big basket with a handle. Here’s what’s in our Shabbat Kit: · Candlesticks · Shabbat candles · Challah covers 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 6 · Kiddush cups · Tzedakah box Such a quick thing to prepare – and what a huge help! When our grandsons are with us, I like to let one of them choose which challah cover to use. For more Shabbat ideas, explore our “Celebrate Shabbat: How to Plan Joyful Home Traditions” downloadable guide with ideas for Friday night, Saturday day, and havdalah on Saturday evening. 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 7 Purim – Leave the Rolling Pin in the Drawer Have you had second thoughts about making hamentaschen because the recipes you’ve seen call for rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters or glasses to cut perfect circles? If your main goal is kitchen fun with the kiddoes, consider our alternative that involves four easy steps: 1. Make small balls of dough in the palms of your hands. 2. Press them down into a circle-like shape with the heels of your hands. 3. Add a little filling. 4. Crimp the three sides together to form triangles. Even kids as young as 3 and 4 can make their own hamentaschen this way! This is a wonderful time to encourage creativity — new fillings, new sizes. When our daughter was 8, she began to “specialize” in making tiny hamentaschen. As long as you bake similar-size treats on the same cookie sheet, you’ll be fine. (That is, put all the big ones on one cookie sheet; put all the baby ones on a different one, because they take different amounts of time to bake.) 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 8 For us, favorite fillings include strawberry and apricot jam (for the kids) and poppy seed (more for the adults). Other popular fillings are chocolate morsels and Nutella. No one is our house is a huge fan of prune filling – but that is a “classic” choice. To learn more about how you can celebrate Purim in your home, you might enjoy these blog posts. · Celebrating Purim at Home · What’s the Story — The Purim Story, That Is And check out our Purim Pinterest page for costume, food, and noisemaker ideas. 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 9 Rosh Hashanah – Hint: It Involves a Snack Food! How can you get everyone involved at Rosh Hashanah dinner in one of the most awe-inspiring traditions of the synagogue-based part of holiday – the shofar blowing? We recently learned about using Bugles – yes, the snack food! – as pretend shofars (shofrot is the plural). In our family, our daughter gives us all a quick refresher on each type of shofar blast, then calls out for us. Tekiah! (one long single blast), Shevarim! (three shorter blasts), Teruah! (nine quick staccato blasts) and, finally, Tekiah G’dolah! (a single unbroken blast that you hold as long as your breath lasts). And we all (from the toddler to the grandparents) pick up our Bugles and blow. Well, the baby just crunched his last year, but I think he’ll get the idea this year. 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 10 To learn more about how Rosh Hashanah dinner can be fun in your home, you might enjoy these blog posts. · Yes, Rosh Hashanah Dinner Can Be Fun · Time to Make Rosh Hashanah Cards And visit our Rosh Hashanah Pinterest page for lots of great recipes and an abundance of creative art ideas. 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 11 Hanukkah – Create a Hanukkah Centerpiece When our girls were little, they loved to decorate and color and hang shiny ribbons from doorways to make our home festive. But if you’re short on time, here’s a quick way to create a Hanukkah centerpiece that is both functional and fun. And even the smallest hands can help make it. No scissors or glue required – and no mess made. It’s simple as 1, 2, 3. First, get a basket or large platter. Second, gather all your Hanukkah symbols together. Three, invite your child to create a display. Include any combination of: · Dreidels (various sizes, plastic, wooden, ceramic) · Hanukkah gelt in gold and silver foil · Walnuts in their shells (especially if you plan to use them when you play dreidel) 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 12 · Hanukkah cookie cutters · Hanukkah candles (including leftovers of different kinds and colors from years past) · Mini-menorahs · Blue and silver bows When our toddler grandson made our last Hanukkah display, he had a strong sense of how the candles should be placed. And, of course, I thought it was a brilliant suggestion! Then, during the week, we can choose candles from the plate to put into the menorah, help ourselves to gelt, and use the dreidels for games. When your dreidel game is over, just put the dreidels back on the platter – and you’re ready for the next game. You’ll find more easy ways to celebrate in “ Celebrate Hanukkah: How to Light Up Your Holiday,” our downloadable guide to all the nuts-and-bolts, plus fun ideas for food and decorating. Need to brush up on how to say the blessings? Our downloadable Hanukkah Blessings Tutorial will give you the confidence you need. We’ve even got a downloadable Happy Hanukkah Art & Activity Pak with decorating and coloring activities to do as a family. For family fun games for Hanukkah, look at our award-winning Hanukkah Bingo Game, Hanukkah Family Fun Kit, and Hanukkah Games Box. 5 Super-Simple, Time-Saving Tips for More Joyful Jewish Holiday Celebrations | Ellen Zimmerman | www.JewishHolidaysInABox.com 13 About Ellen Zimmerman Ever since our girls were little, I’ve enjoyed embellishing our Jewish holiday celebrations. With homemade decorations. A bit of poetry. A song I love. Now, as a grandmother, I see our family expand to represent a huge diversity of backgrounds. So my focus on weaving together centuries-old traditions with modern ones has a new goal: to embrace everyone who enriches our home by sharing the holidays with us.