Purim Spectacular

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to the Purim Spectacular put on by the girls' school at a local community center. (Purim is a Jewish holiday commemorating the story in the Book of Esther, a story about a defeated genocidal attempt against the Jews in ancient Persia.) Each class—except for the youngest ones, including Amelia's—put on some kind of act for the families and friends in the audience. JoJo's class did a line dance number, and it was extremely cute. The kids were dressed uniformly, and they executed their moves with pride and concentration. In other circumstances, I would have simply felt it was cute and left it at that; but that was my girl up there, and my heart swelled with pride. It was great!

A number of the classes had nice routines, although I thought a few were pretty lame. Mostly the show was in French, but one class performed in Hebrew, and another in Flemish. JoJo said she had a good time performing, and also watching the rest of the show from the side of the stage.

After the show there was a buffet. Despite the fact that the buffet was arranged in two reception rooms, it was absolute chaos: throngs rushing the buffet tables, and very limited seating once you had your food. After lunch, we adjourned to the play areas. In one of the reception rooms there were a number of game and activity stations, in addition to the buffet area. One of the stations had a fish tank filled with candy. You picked a card, which connected you with a kitchen utensil; then you used the utensil to acquire a single scoop of candies. The utensils ranged from a butter knife (worst) to a ladel (best for the unskilled) and whisk (best for the skilled). The woman operating the station rigged it so that each of my girls got the ladel. Another station had face painting, where JoJo got her face turned into a butterfly.

In the entrance hall was erected an inflatable bouncy castle. Both girls did a bunch of jumping in there, but Amelia took it to a whole 'nother level. She frequently came to me for water, and ultimately drained my supply. Shortly after that, I noticed she was missing. (There were three exits from the bouncy castle, and it was hard to watch more than one at a time. Classic!) Eventually I found her wandering around the auditorium, in search of more water. I wish she had just asked me!

The show was nice for the parents, and what came after that was obviously more for the kids. When we eventually decided it was time to head back home (this determination is highly scientific, and heavily tied to Amelia's mood), Amelia had a most excellent meltdown. She calmed down by the time our tram arrived, however, and she slept almost the whole way home.

A brief note about Purim tradition and the Purim Spectacular: People often get dressed up in costumes for Purim, but I only saw several little kids and one adult who did this. In fairness to the event, all the school kids except the youngest where in the show, so they were dressed appropriately for the show, and not for Purim per se. Also, the next day (today) the kids got to dress up in costume for school—JoJo was a fetching Queen Esther, and Amelia was, um, Minnie Pearl or something. Another tradition that was overlooked at the Spectacular is the hamentasch—a triangular, filling filled (is there a less repetitive way to say that?) pastry—which was sadly missing from the buffet tables. On a different note, we were assured by another family that the food at the Purim Spectacular (and school-related events in general) was legitimately kosher. This was not the poorly-informed understanding we had achieved at the school fundraiser dinner, but I think our current, slightly-better-informed understanding is probably correct.