This Passover, the main objective was to get my three-year-old to stay seated at the dinner table, which meant numerous family members came to last night's seder armed with various Passover-themed books and toys.
None more disturbing than Grammy's gift of "The Ten Plagues Finger Puppets" (see above). Yep. That's LICE, BLOOD and a DEAD BABY (aka the slaying the of the firstborn).
Are you having fun yet, Mazzy? What's that? You'd like a chocolate bunny and a basket full of candy? Sorry, babe! Now be a good little Jew and play with your DISEASED CATTLE puppet.
In all honesty, the plagues were always my favorite part of the seder growing up (you get to dip your finger in the wine for each plague) and it wasn't until last night that I realized how horrifying this should be for a small child. I mean, how do the plaques work exactly? Does BLOOD mean that all the water turned to blood or that everyone one day woke up covered in blood or what? Please tell me which horror movie I should be visually referencing for my holiday gathering of extended family.
But Mazzy was fine and politely asked me to help her apply the BOILS sticker in her Haggadah workbook.
Someone else gave her a box full of the physical manifestations of the plagues (rubber locust, cup of blood, plastic frog), which caused her to wear an eye patch (DARKNESS) through most of dinner.
I gotta say though— Mazzy did look like she was having fun.
Take that chocolate bunny!
My sister had those finger puppets too…. I get making the Seder fun & engaging for kids, but I found it a bit creepy, especially after the lecture on how despite god punishing our enemies, we don’t relish in their suffering. It’s like “yes, we are sad for the egyptians” and then 2 seconds later “yay boils!”
Oh, now that is taking fun to a whole new level.
What I find crazy (on top of the death and pestilence and stuff) is that we never had anything keeping us at the table when we were kids. We were just expected to sit there with the adults and listen. Mazzy was sitting at the head of the table (the head!) with toys, books, puppets, markers, etc. It was ridiculous. None of it my doing.
Guess what my 2 year old got in the mail from worried in-laws since we couldn’t make the family Seder?? The finger puppets! I’ve been having to make up stories with them all morning! Where do people even get this stuff? And glad to see the finger puppets are an apparent “go to” Seder gift!
Haha best grandma award goes to…
I’m thinking of converting to Judaism b/c of this.
I KNEW I was totally missing out. Is it too late to convert? I love acting out plagues with my fingers, if that helps.
I think it’s hilarious that Jews are trying to come up with things to engage kids on the holidays, but we have nothing to hang onto except LOCUSTS and DEAD BABIES. Take that Santa and the Easter bunny!
A couple of years ago I saw, and posted on FB a package of masks of the ten plagues that they were selling at Wegmans. I don’t know if I would put a mask of some of these plagues on my child.
Ohhh Myyy…those puppets should be treasured always. Think of the family fun when you pull those out for Mazzy’s kids in 25 years and get to see the horrified look on her face!
Ha ha! I love how most of them (except for Darkness, Blood, Cattle Plague, and Firstborn) are all happy and smiling with this gleeful look in their eyes. Like, “Ha ha, we’re going to get you!” That does seem like something worth converting for. 😉
And I do hope that it was a fake cup of blood in Mazzy’s box!! lol. She does look too cute in that eye patch.
How creative, with the finger puppets. I don’t know anything about sedar and the traditions, but I think it’s great to have kid-friendly teachable items/toys for them. But I see your point about when we were kids, we just had to sit at the table — dinner, weddings, etc — and toys were hardly ever involved. What’s happening to our kids?
Good for you! We gave our son a Disney video to watch or he’d never sit at the table. I am the worst mom ever.
I’m so happy we’re not alone! My in-laws got these for our kids last year. In fact, we have two sets. One for each child. Double the plagues on our household. 😉
Wow, and I thought we Catholics were warped as kids. Plague puppets??? Too funny. I can’t believe how grown up Mazzy looks. Of course Plague puppets can do that to a kid, I guess.
When I was doing a search for Passover toys and books for my 9 month old, I found these and the masks too! Along with an inflatable matzah ball and an inflatable punching bag pharaoh… Poor child is going to turn to her Catholic side just for the fun bunnies.
I was having the same conversation with my husband! We always did an “adult” Seder (from our Maxwell House haguddahs, of course). Sure, we were bored at times, but there were still fun songs to look forward to and plenty of snark to be had as we got older (like the part where the Rabbis argue over how many plagues there REALLy were) I mean, counting down the pages until the festive meal is part of the fun I think 🙂
it’s funny because we were talking yesterday after my sister’s kiddie Seder takeover, that if/when we were hosting, we’d ideally try do do a somewhat adult Seder, but stop when we could to sing the silly songs they learned in school, talk about what’s going on at their level, etc. I think I always preferred a mix of tradition & modernization, but that may be just me. 🙂
I think there’s a Jon Stewart skit on exactly that comparison….:)
We did the masks. I told my brother he had to be the dead kid because he was first born. I got to be locusts! As usual, I was afraid a fight would break out over who got to be ‘boils’…
We’re not Jewish, but I am absolutely ordering those finger puppets for my kids. I think children of all religions should be able to wear “boils” on their fingers with pride. 🙂
Ha ha. Just read this. My 3.5-yr-old goes to a Jewish preschool. A few weeks ago I asked if they’d started discussing Passover yet. He said no and asked what it was about. Put on the spot like that, I started talking about how the Jews had been slaves in Egypt, Moses went to Pharoah and told him if he didn’t let the Jews go that bad things would happen. Of course son asks “What bad things?” and all I could think was “slaying of the first-born.” I asked his teacher how she tells the story, and she said she doesn’t specify the plagues, just says Moses said there will be consequences and then leads it into a discussion of consequences at home for various behaviors (brilliant!). But the next day, one of my son’s friends came to school and asked, “So when are you going to talk about the burning bush and dead babies?”
This story also made me think of this stuffed “animal” that my dad (an infectious diseases dr) must have been given at some point, that ended up in the kids’ toy box at Grandma & Grandpa’s: http://www.amazon.com/Giant-Microbes-Plasmodium-falciparum-Educational/dp/B000NO9HM0
Those very puppets are displayed in my living room each spring. Right along side other holiday favorites, like my “Boo carrots, Yay chocolate!” bunny, and phalanx worth of plush Peeps.
[…] much as I make fun of the Jewish holidays, this week I remembered that matzah with butter is one of the greatest late night snacks in the […]
[…] Via Mommyshorts.com: “Thanks Grammy, for Horrifying My Child With the 10 Plagues Finger Puppets” […]