So what do you do when you are living in your newly remodeled home for a few months and are getting married in 2 weeks?

You host your first holiday to the tune of 23 people. Twenty-three!

So that happened this weekend.

We decided to christen (a little weird to use that word in this context but whatever) the new digs by hosting Passover this year. SLS had family in from NY as did I, so it was the perfect primer for the upcoming wedding.

It was great, delicious, chaotic and exhausting…pretty much in that order.

With tying up all of the loose ends for the wedding and both working full-time, we couldn’t prep for this holiday like normal people. I think we made like 5 trips within 3 days to Costco, Publix and Target because we just could not get our shit together and kept forgetting stuff. We also kept “thinking” we forgot the matzoh meal (a staple to any passover meal) and managed to buy 3 packages. The same thing happened with the Manischewitz Wine (it’s super sweet and you either love it or hate it. I love it and would order it in a bar if it were socially acceptable). My soon-to-be sister-in-law and I made big plans to get drunk on it and the night was such a whirlwind we forgot to open a single bottle.

SLS bought 20 lbs of brisket (not a typo) but because of our hectic schedules did not even begin cooking it until after 5pm on Friday night (everyone was coming at 4pm Saturday).

That's a lot of meat

That’s a lot of meat

So he was up until 4am perfecting it. He put the 3 ginormous trays of burning hot brisket in the fridge and went to bed for a couple of hours.

Because we like to torture ourselves we also purchased the little bar we had our eye on (if you gifted me cash for my bridal shower, you had a hand in this, so thank you) and SLS put it together the day before, in between tending to the full cow cooking in our oven. This is one instance where his hoarding tendencies came in handy because we had enough liquor to stock that sucker right out of the box. Also, the lovely Crate and Barrel sales woman told him she put it together in 45 mins while having a glass of wine. Based on his experience though, we have deemed she probably finished the bottle, and lost track of the 3 hours it really took her.

Locked and Loaded

Locked and Loaded

Then it was my turn to make the sides the next morning. As everything was underway, SLS makes an announcement nobody wants to hear on a normal day, much less a 23-person holiday happening in a matter of hours…”The fridge isn’t working!”

FML

Thank god for awesome neighbors who relinquished their spare, garage fridge to us until we figured it out. SLS called the repair guy and of course, as it usually happens, the temp immediately started to go back to normal while he was already en route and we would have to pay him to not fix anything. So, an hour and $85 dollars later, the answer to the busted fridge (which is 2 months old, beeteedubs) was in – SLS’s Brisket Broke the Fridge.

I’m going to take a brief sidebar here and tell you that just a few weeks ago when SLS was about to put leftovers in the fridge, I told him to wait because I had always been told you weren’t supposed to immediately put hot food in the fridge. He looked at me like I was crazy (I am, but I was right on this one so whatever) and blew off my sage advice. The repair man explained that the amount AND temperature of the brisket was a recipe for disaster. SLS is still trying to deny it and blame it on something else. We all know the truth though.

There was even frenzy of Facebook comedy related to the broken fridge.

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So we’re back in business. It’s now chaos. I’m cooking, my daughter is helping, SLS is cleaning up the dog hair (which is the bane of my existence), I’m getting out serving platters, SLS is still cleaning up dog hair.

Future in-laws arrive with a fully cooked turkey to accompany the 20 lbs of brisket, and the carving begins.

And then…the invasion.

Jason’s aunt and uncle come with about 500 Matzoh Balls.

My Aunt and Uncle come with the same amount of stuffed cabbage, along with a broom and sugar (apparently these are things you’re supposed to gift to new homeowners – I was momentarily excited because I thought she just brought her own cleaning supplies).

My cousin brought enough dessert to feed 30.

My mom did too.

Everyone basically walked in – arms overflowing with packages.

There was matzoh on the table, covered as it should be. Each compartment of the Seder plate was appropriately filled, except no Charosset (that’s an apple and nut concoction) because of my daughter’s nut allergy. And we forgot the “bitter herbs” during our 10 shopping trips so we improvised with a piece of spinach.

tables

food

dessert

SLS also decided to go off script and make crab cakes (shell fish is absolutely not kosher) as an app. Relax – he used matzoh meal instead of bread crumbs.

And we had no actual Seder, which should come as no surprise if you remember last year’s Passover antics. We just ate and laughed and drank. It was perfect.

I’m Type A, so I did not sit down and was cleaning basically the whole time so that I wouldn’t have a mound of dishes at the end.

We used paper plates and cups but every real piece of silverware we own.

And at the end of our Seder-less night where we served shellfish, aside from the few things we didn’t put away, the leftover-filled (working) refrigerator and fingerprint-covered glass doors from three little munchkins running around, you could never tell we had a small village over to celebrate.

Can’t wait to do it again soon.