The High Holidays are here

Yes I know that we have already done 2/3 of the holidays this month, but I am telling you....the Thanksgiving/Christmas season has NOTHING on this month of Jewish holidays. Next year, maybe I will hire an event coordinator for me because I am in serious meal/invitation management mode. No joke - there are scheduling templates out there to manage all of the meals, including the menu and the guests (with space for candlelighting and reminders).

For several years now, it feels as though the holidays are really all about the food. The schedule is about the food. The big buzz is who is going where. You have to take into consideration the weather and where guests will be shlepping from, not to mention where they are going after the meal (as in, do they live far from you? nearby?). You have to factor in kids (nap schedules, number of kids you can handle at one time, picky eaters). You have to have a nice balance of marrieds & singles, kids & no kids, older & younger. You need to know who gets along with whom.

Thanksgiving is one giant fest about turkey. Christmas is a lovely holiday of which many wonderful movies are made. But they don't hold a candle to the craziness I am experiencing right now.

(of course, I am saying nothing about the weekly Shabbat meal schedule.)

So at the end of the (holi)day, I am exhausted from entertaining. I actually enjoy the entertaining part, but the whole management of it tires me out. And I am bummed that I don't get to enjoy the holiday for what it is, the spirituality of it, the meaning of it. I suppose that means that I am doing something wrong, and I try to be better about it (like, selecting easy recipes or obvious winners instead of something new and complicated) with every holiday, but dude I don't have time. It's time to plan for Shabbat...