Passover....

So, Passover....

I've blogged about our heirloom Seder plate. We had no idea it was cousin to a museum piece until we say it on eBay.

Well, now I've seen our family Haggadah on Amazon.

A Haggadah is a book that contains the prayers and readings you need in order to conduct a Passover Seder.  When I was a child, most families used the free Haggadah that they picked up at the supermarket while they were doing their Passover shopping.  The most famous of the "supermarket Haggadahs" was printed by Maxwell House, but other coffee compaies also gave out Hagggadahs.

We have the Maxwell House Haggadah, but we don't use it anymore.  Instead, we use the Haggadah for the American Family. 

We like this version because, in addtion to the long, traditional text, it also contains a shorter service, all in English, which keeps everyone engaged in the story.

Our books date back to the 1960's.  they are falling apart, the pages are stained with wine, and when you open the books you're likely to find stale matza crumbs from previous Seders among the pages.

If I listen careful to the voices of memory inside my head I can hear my father reading from the Haggadah, my grandmother singing in Yiddish, my aunt Eileen calling me by the pet name only she used....

We wouldn't trade these old books for the world.