Although there have been exceptions, normally we host two seders every year with family and friends. The past several years have been exceptions because of the pandemic, but this year we expected to be back to action. Hannah and her family were to be traveling to Massachusetts, so we had seders planned with Michelle, Josh and his boys, several cousins who live in town, and one out of town visitor. It would be a lot of work (that means mainly not me), but getting back to normalcy. But…….

First, Edie had what we think was a case of food poisoning three nights before the first seder. But what if it was something else? Was she contagious? Would anyone want to eat the food? What about her energy level?

While we were trying to figure out what made sense, we learned that our out of town guest – for other reasons – decided not to make the trip. But we told our first night guests that we had to cancel.

Then, to top it all off, I got sick and spent Monday pretty much horizontal. That cinched it – we cancelled day 2.

But Wednesday morning, we both felt recovered. Wednesday night, we streamed the Adas Israel community seder (verdict: it’s not the same thing), and mulled over what we should do for the second night.

We decided to uncancel night no. 2, and called our 5 guests and told them. All seemed happy to come. And did.

And somehow, Edie pulled together a dinner of a terrific salad, matzah ball soup, salmon, cauliflower kugel, roasted vegetables, asparagus and strawberry fluff. I was able to make the table look like a seder table with all the trimmings. And our seder – 5 adults, 1 11 year old and 1 15 year old – went like clockwork.

But, oh yes, back to Hannah’s family. On the day before they were to leave for Massachusetts, two year old Izzy developed a fever. So Andrew and Joan flew out, but Hannah and Izzy remained home. Izzy’s fever spiked and even today he just recovering. So they were in DC, but were unable to come to our house.

So – it wasn’t a normal Passover for us (and certainly not for Hannah) – but it could have been worse.

Next year: normal will preside.