Purim Preparations

Thanks to our pared-down list, we now deliver only 24 shalach manos packages in person on Purim – down from 40 a couple of years ago.  MUCH easier!  24 is such a nice, easy number to make everything come out just right…

…100 or so grissini (breadsticks) (4 per package)…

…48 or so hamentashen (2 per package; one prune, one cherry)…

…48 homemade pink-jello marshmallows…

 

… 50 25g packages of homemade sponge toffee (somewhat smashed-up)…

 

…24 little spring chickens, cut, pasted, folded by me and the big kids, with a little poem rolled up inside each one:

  

(Yerachmiel kindly pointed out that the thing about Esther isn’t true – as Mordechai points out in the megillah, if she hadn’t stepped up to the plate, salvation would have come from somewhere else.  But anyway.)

…48 little dip containers for the breadsticks; 24 black bean, 24 chick pea:

… 24 Easter baskets, spray-painted gold and silver.  Oy!  I have always resisted the temptation to buy the many beautiful Easterish containers at this time of year because the colours are an instant tip-off.  But I found these baskets at Value Village, the perfect size and shape, and there were 4 packages of 7 baskets, for $1.99 each… so I took them all.  There isn’t much you can buy to pack 24 shalach manos in for $8 (frankly, it was almost cheaper than nice paper plates!).  :-o

Of course, you also have to factor in the cost of spray paint, and the labour involved in covering every single pastel-coloured detail of all 24 baskets.  If you ever have to do this, take it from me – gold is easier.  It’s darker and covers better, and quicker.  My spraycan trigger finger still aches.  But I think they came out pretty nice, if very slightly toxic-smelling.

And now they’re sitting lined up here like happy Purim soldiers, all ready to go out the door!

   

A freilichn Purim, everybody!!!!