Holiday begins

We all had off from work except for Hubby who had to meet a deadline. Let me describe what a sukkah is. It is something that you construct for a period 7 days during this holiday, a rectangular, or square hut, with walls usually made of either wood or canvas sheets (when we were in canada, we used wood because it was cold outdoors - in Israel most people use plastic canvas for the walls). The roof consists of bamboo strips with some palm fronds put on top of that. We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks in that Sukkah. In fact, because of the biblical injunction of "7 days shall you live in it" many Orthodox Jews actually sleep in their sukkah. We prefer our beds of course, but when the kids were younger they all threw their sleeping bags in the sukkah and camped out there for a few nights. Most Israelis have either a garden or balcony where they construct their sukkah. If there is no balcony or garden, you just build one on the sidewalk! Hotels have communal sukkahs for their guests. Hopefully if I can get my camera working this evening, the photos are the best way to describe how they look. Christmas decorations are a big seller for this holiday. Blinking lights, tinsel, lots of tinsel are the usual sukkah decorations hanging from the bamboo strips. I supplement the tinsel with plastic hanging fruit like grapes, olives, pomegrantes. This year someone just gave me fresh dates and pomegrantes - the real thing- to hang in there. Decorating the sukkah is equivalent to decorating the Christmas tree. That's when the kids get out of bed, no matter what age, no matter if it's 3 pm and pool their interior decorating talents together. Last night when I walked the dog in the park, where everyone's backyard, porches back on to, it was like a symphony of sorts. No one seemed to be indoors. You could see the shadows inside the sukkahs. You could hear everyone singing, talking, kids playing, forks and plates clanking. It was like one giant communal festivity happening.