Rosh Hashanah | Good Times with Jess

Working has got the best of me. More on that soon. But first… The holidays!

RB asked me,

“Do you like Halloween?”

“Yes!”

“But not as much as me.”

“That might be true.”

There are many people in our neighborhood who decorate heavily for ALL holidays. That requires a level of stamina, commitment, organization, storage, money, and caring that I’m not ready for.

Mid-September I put out Star-of-David hand towels for the high holidays. After Yom Kippur, I put them away and took out our Halloween towels.

I spent the rest of the month defending my decorating choices to a five-year-old.

Every morning and every afternoon as we drove the ten minutes to and from school, she observed the neighbors and recited the catalog of possible Halloween swag.

Then she whined,

“When are we going to decorate?!!”

“We already did.”

“We did?”

“Yup. We have kitchen towels, three pumpkins and a sign on the door that says ‘Happy Halloween.”

“NOOOOOOOOO. That doesn’t count.”

The thing is, we do have a small, cackling witch, but anytime I try to hang it up, RB is too scared to walk by it.

EVERY drive she complained. I blasted Taylor Swift and threatened to remove the hand towels.

Every year, Captain gets closer and closer to buying some gigantic animatronic atrocity for the front lawn. And if he caves, no hard feelings, but it won’t be me.

RB tried again. She asked me,

“Why don’t we decorate?”

“We did.”

“Like lots of stuff in our yard.”

“Before you know it, we’re going to be decorating for Hanukkah and Christmas and we have SO MUCH.”

“It’s Hanukkah time?!?!?!?”

Nooo.

So that may have backfired. But to save myself trips in and out of the attic, I may just swap out the Halloween stuff for the holiday stuff. Once the bins are out, it’s anyone’s guess as to how long a Hanukkah gnome can stay in a bin.

I’m not sure when trick-or-treating turned into a sprint…

Other people aren’t decorating for Halloween either…

I don’t know what it is about this pumpkin stack, but I wouldn’t say no to it

Harris/Walz all the way! HERE WE GO

Shana Tova! Happy New Year! Captain lucked out that Rosh Hashanah fell on the weekend. Off to children’s services we went.

When it’s on a weekday, it’s work like usual for Captain. He’s saving his time off for when he really needs it, like hopefully in a few weeks to dress up as Shabbat Shark.

He is a very committed employee. A month ago when we got a tornado warning, he went into the basement with us. He watched us get settled with a movie and declared,

“I don’t have time for this.” And went back to work above ground.

I wasn’t sure how to feel. I didn’t want to be in the basement with a Disney movie either, but it would be a bummer to die. I thought about Captain: There’s his life insurance and hopefully some sort of recognition for dying in the line of duty for his IT job.

There was no tornado. Playtime resumed above ground and Captain probably wished for another imminent natural disaster.

Rosh Hashanah morning we walk into the sanctuary, I tell BB she can pick where we sit. She heads straight for the front center row.

I don’t go to synagogue for the people watching or the daydreaming, but I don’t mind a little bit of both. There’s none of that to be done from the front row.

RB declines to sit with us. She sees her Hebrew school teacher several rows back and makes a beeline for her. Smart kid.

BB starts to sag. She says she’s too tired to stand. She’s yawning. Then her head is on my lap. Captain has been casing the joint and whispers to me,

“We’re on the live feed.”

He points out several cameras trained on the front of the sanctuary. I get BB to sit up. RB has no inclination to sit with us ever again. Maybe I should move back to her.

I glance at BB. Half her finger has disappeared up her nose.

WHY did we sit in the front? I manage to recover her finger, only for it to disappear several more times.

The saving grace is that they didn’t hand out the plastic toy shofars that they have in the past. Imagine giving a room full of young families loud plastic horns and then somehow hoping the small children only blow them when they’re told it’s ok.

It was a lovely service and there’s a live feed to prove it. Next up? Yom Kippur on Monday. Captain’s work commitment exempts him from the front row. Middle aisle is my goal and RB can fend for herself.