Some Fun Things for Passover

Passover is only one week away...

Can any of you believe it? Time has been flying so fast the last while that Passover seems to be approaching at record speed. And what an exciting feeling abounds! Our family started cleaning, sorting and organizing about two weeks ago, and now that all of it is nearly finished, it's time to start getting into a more festive mood.

I am so excited that most of us will be celebrating Passover around the same time this year, if not on the exact same day. While all of us have different traditions and keep it slightly different, I thought I'd share some of our favourite Passover things to do and to make.

In our family, we tend to follow a Messianic Haggadah during the seder, and that generally means we get to eat lots of snacks, take part in asking the Four Questions, and go through all the plagues one by one. All in all, it's a very blessed, fun, and incredible night. I'm sure all of you would say the same!

We like to do a ''re-enactment'' of the plagues when we get to them in the seder meal. There are so many ideas out there. One thing we did for several years is make a model of the land of Egypt, using tablecloths of different colours to make the land and Nile River. We'd take little wooden blocks or anything that could work for houses and make the Goshen for the Israelites and then any extras would go to Egypt. Once we made some paper pyramids, which add a nice touch to the scene. We like to add plastic animals and people, too. The creative ones would add little details like trees etc. just to make it look cool.

But all the fun usually begins when the plagues come along. I know - we're probably a bit cruel - but hey, sometimes it's fun to make a mess!

For the actual plagues, we'd have:

A red tablecloth for the blood

Beans for the frogs

Lentils of different colours for gnats and lice

Beans etc. for the flies

Red playdough for the boils

Cotton balls for the hail (if you want to be really cruel you can use table-tennis balls)

Something long and pointy like wholegrains (wheat etc.) for the locusts

A big, dark blanket for darkness

And then, as our Dad reads about the plagues, we would make them happen! We'd cover the blue Nile River with the red tablecloth. We'd sprinkle the beans all around for the frogs. We'd do the same with the lentils for the gnats and lice. The flies generally came out in vast numbers. We'd take little bits of red playdough and stick it onto the people and animals for the boils, and knock over any animals that ''died''. Then hail came in full force. The blanket was spread over the land as darkness settled in, and some of the people were removed as death took it's toll. Of course, we were very careful not to touch Goshen. Goshen was always clean and tidy!

Egypt in shambles

Another idea that isn't as messy is something we tried last year, because we weren't in the mood for making such a big mess. Instead, we made little things. We took a small jar with a lid, filled it with water and red food colouring to represent the blood. I think I'll try show you what they looked like instead - but beware, we were in a desperate hurry as we made them because Passover was right around the corner! Thus, they look a little sad... and the photo quality is awful... but here it goes!

The Flies: we just used pom-poms, googly eyes, and felt for the wings.

Okay, we admit it - we cheated a bit with these frogs!

We just used some washing pegs, googly eyes and felt for these!

For the boils we used round red stickers and stuck them on. They actually started to itch after a while! For hail and fire we got lots and lots of white and orange table-tennis balls and had a mini ''war'', throwing each other with them. Some sort of a helmet would be a good thing to wear, by the way. Ahem.

For darkness, all of us children decided that we would each station ourselves near a light switch and turn off all the lights unexpectedly with as loud a scream as we could muster. I wouldn't recommend it if you have little children who are afraid of the dark. But for those of us who enjoy a good, loud as you can scream, it's quite fun. The cherry on top was that nobody else except us knew that that was what we were going to do, so the people at the table were very surprised, to say the least.

Another thing we found was these cool placemats, by The Jewish Latin Princess. They look really cool and we could look at them for ages.

For another Passover we printed out the Ten Plagues and stuck them onto popsicle sticks, hiding two of these under every plate. They kind of look like stop signs (which I guess they were, but old Pharaoh just didn't get the point...), and at the beginning of the seder, everyone had to look at which plagues were under their plate, and when it was mentioned, they had to hold it up.

For blood on the doors, we usually take red streamers and bluetack them into place. But, although it does work, it doesn't work very well - the streamers have a tendency to tear, and the bluetack (no matter how much you use) doesn't always do it's job very well and they fall off. But we still end up doing it every year. Perhaps, if you know of a better way...

Although there isn't a lot on the Cooking section for Passover yet, while I'm putting it together, I'd like to hear what you and your family enjoy for Passover. Please let us know and send through your recipes!

Something that we like to do that is fun and informative, is to read and look at some sketches of what Passover looked like in the Second Temple Period. While everyone differs in opinion on how to do Passover today, this is a great insight to what Passover looked like back then when Yeshua celebrated the Feast. Here is the link to the story: https://templeinstitute.org/passover/

Music is always a fun and inspiring way to laugh, sing, and praise. Usually the Hallel Psalms are sung, and Yeshua sung them too when He kept the Feast. We usually sing Hayovel's recordings of the Hallel, and you can find one of them on YouTube, Psalm 117. I'll attach it here so that it's easier to find.

Another song that we love and that has so much meaning is this one below. Just remember to turn on the subtitles! It was filmed in the ancient city of Shiloh, adding a special touch to it. Personally, it's one of my favourites.

Below I've attached a few more songs that we like to listen to as well. Please be sure to send through your favourites!

Please be sure to share all of your favourite Passover crafts, table settings, recipes, and music!

Shabbat shalom!