Our Sacketstory: Pesach 2013

For Passover 2013, after 2 years of celebrating it together and just the two of us, we decided it was time to go big. How big? Oh, you'll see.

It all started when we were hanging out with our small group, innocently discussing various matters when our leader suddenly, with no warning, looked around the group and asked,

"Does anyone have anything else to say?"

This was odd because we're the type of group in which all members just say what they have to say, when they need to say it, and regardless of who's listening or who else is saying their thing at the same time. Which is quite endearing and seems to work just fine. But, back to the moment

Just as I think I'm past that awkward inner conversation of 'Ok, now's the time to invite everybody.....wait! No..... on second thought, everybody would think it's weird.......it's a lot of work.....I've never hosted that big of a dinner party..........what if I mess it up.........yeah, I'll just do it with Pete again. Ok, yeah, that's what we'll do. Oh good! Somebody else is talking!'

So I happily tune into whatever that somebody else was saying. Proud of myself to have successfully dodged a potentially huge Passover disaster.

THEN......

"Does anyone have anything else to say?"

.................................seriously.....

Ok, apparently I only need to be pushed twice. Because after what seemed like an endless agonizing silence, I heard my voice pipe up,

"Pete and I would like to invite you all to celebrate Passover with us this year at our home."

Everybody smiled, said that would be great and the conversation drifted away. Me, I just sat there blinking and thought, 'way to use peer pressure, Lord. What have you gotten me into!'

So all that to be said, here is a photo chronicle of the preparation that went into it and a few pictures of the final results and festivities.

I have read several different types of haggadah and really didn't know where to start. I knew that I wanted to keep it simple, firstly respectful of Biblical mandates and also of tradition. Over the course of a couple weekends I did much research and compiled a haggadah for the occasion based in majority on the following excellent resources.

'Celebrating Jesus in the Biblical Feasts' by Dr. Richard Booker

and

'Behold the Lamb' by Leigh Rood Fransen

I then made a copy for each guest to create ease in following along.

The menu was to consist of slow cooked leg of lamb marinated overnight in rosemary, diced garlic, honey and several other yummy ingredients. Once I had that settled I was able to turn my attention to decorating.

Let me tell you, contrary to what you might otherwise think, it is not easy to find lamb themed items this time of year!

Who knew!

Now if Jesus had been our Passover bunny or Passover chicklet decorating would have been a snap. As it was I had to scour the toy section of Fred Meyer to come up with three of these adorable little lamb figurines.

Because I kept our haggadah simple and short I wanted to provide other resources for people to read and learn. I made copies of these really cool fact sheets from, 'A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays' by Robin Sampson and Linda Pierce.

I placed the potatoes on to boil, mid afternoon.

Then I mixed up a simple recipe for a traditional Passover dish called Charoset. Apples, walnuts, cinnamon, brown sugar and grape juice. Can't go wrong with that.