It may (!) have been hinted at in previous posts that the Hass Avocados have a tiny, barely noticeable obsession with the festival of Purim. With Pater taking more of a back-seat this year following the loss of Grandpa London, Mater let you Avocado Juniors decide for yourself what to dress up as. The results were impressive...
...but in Mater's extremely humble (!) opinion, they were too all-over-the-place. Where's the challenge in that? Doesn't everyone know that Purim requires the 4 Cs??? Creative, cute and cohesive costumes. But as you Avocado Juniors get older and older, that gets harder and harder. Mater was complaining to Pater that inspiration doesn't come as easy it used to. Disney, Lego, Animals blah blah blah. Pater shrugged and suggested that the answer might be staring us in our face so why go crazy with outlandish (read: expensive) ideas. Mater laughed him off. As if it's that easy! Everyone knows that inspiration costs money!
But why not humor Pater? So here's what we know, Avocado Juniors: individually you may act like demons, but collectively you are a wonderful, sweet, adorable and saintly, dare I say, holy, bunch...
And when you throw in our name sakes...
...Mater realized that our theme for Purim this year
was staring her in the face!!!
Happy Purim!!!!
Avocado Juniors, you will be taught very early in life that being en vogue in your endeavours and capturing the zeitgeist with your thoughts, are of paramount importance. Cliches are just so cliche. Fresh is best. To which Pater says, blah blah blah - which incidentally is a phrase first used by the Ancient Greeks ("bar bar bar" from the same root as barbarian and implying meaningless noises) and demonstrates just how far back Pater is prepared to go to prove his point that oldies are goodies! Why this sudden attack on our modern-day requirement for only serving up the new and rejecting the old? Let me take you back, way back, to last autumn...
It was late September 2017 and Mater and Pater had started to put on our thinking caps. What to dress up as? Who will wear what? And what candy will match our theme? While a lot of North American parents were thinking the same thoughts, they were only planning for Halloween. But not Mater and Pater. We were planning for five months hence, for the most wonderful, most exciting, most amazing Jewish festival of them all. That's right my Avocado Juniors, PURIM!!!! (Incidentally, despite what many will claim, we were not insane to start planning then - that is the only time of the year when a whole plethora of costumes are available. Wait until February and you're lucky to get a second hand witch costume).
But after so many years of dressing up for Purim, we had exhausted all the good themes (Lego, animals, princesses, kids movies etc etc) and rejected so many bad themes (which Pater will not list to avoid insulting anyone and just in case we end up running out of choices next year). None of the movies of 2017 were stand-out enough to inspire us and all the great ideas we came up with could not be stretched over 6 different costumes. Argh, what to do, what to do???
And then Pater had it. It was an old and dated theme. But, thanks to Disney purchasing and then restarting the franchise, it was also new and, certainly for AJ1 and AJ2, fresh. Waiving his hand mysteriously and muttering "you will like the idea", Pater suggested dressing up as Star Wars (and then, just to be safe, quickly ducked behind the sofa in case Mater used her death grip on his throat). The universe waited while Mater mulled it over. But it seemed that Pater's Jedi tricks had worked. She smiled.
So the costumes were ordered and, incredibly, the Avocado Juniors managed to keep everything as secret as the Death Star (AJ1 tried to send out the info via a friendly yet weird robot, but Pater infiltrated it) until, finally, Purim arrived...
Ok, the characters were old. The theme was dated. But AJ1 looked amazing as Rey...
...AJ2 got to fulfill his life long dream (at least, his life long dream since Pater took him to see Star Wars) of being Darth Vader...
...AJ3 was convinced Stormtroopers were the heros of the story...
...AJ4 was the cutest Yoda ever...
...and Mater not only rocked it as Queen Amidala (joined by a very cool Obi Wan Kenobi), but also had lots of fun putting together an amazing mishloach manot for our friends and family...
Throw in some Kangoo Boots (the next best thing to using the Force to jump around; thanks Aunty Toronto!)...
...and, of course, light sabers...
...and you basically have an oldie that was very much a goodie. Pater and Mater only hope that you Avocado Juniors continue to view us that way, Purim or otherwise!!!
AJ4, in a few months you will enter the world and be immersed in the complicated calendar of Jewish festivals that are such an important part in our lives. Just to give you a heads up, among all those days of festivity and fasting, there is no holiday us Avocado Hasses love more than Purim. Love is perhaps not the right word. Obsessed is closer to the truth. Mater and Pater literally spend months preparing for this holiday that commemorates when an evil vizier who predated Jafar by 2,500 years tried to destroy the Jews of Persia and another 126 countries. Just as God's presence in the victory was famously disguised, Jews across the centuries have spent this charity-, food- and alcohol-fueled holiday disguised in fancy dress. And we Avocado Hasses have proudly done our part...
...2012 was the year of AJ1's favourite book, The Paperbag Princess, with a side helping of a Disney princess, a cuddly bear and a cupcake...
...in 2013, thanks to AJ2's favourite cartoon and Tinkerbell's fairy dust, we flew to Neverland with some pirates, a smattering of superheroes, a hockey player and, of course, a Disney princess...
...2014 saw us venture to Oz, with AJ3 providing a bump in the Yellow Brick Road, accompanied by a few superheroes and a rock star...
...everything was awesome in 2015 thanks to The Lego Movie, a ballerina, a king and the now obligatory superhero and Disney princess...
...which brings us to this year when, courtesy of Disney's Zootopia, we celebrated with some wild animals and their keeper, a couple Rastas and whole load of family and friends...
Yup, AJ4, Purim's a big deal in your family and so you may want to spend the next couple months in Mater's stomach giving some thought to a good theme for next year. No pressure. But while you're considering a motif that integrates superheroes, Disney princesses and the latest meme that captures the zeitgeist, please keep in mind that one thing Mater and Pater never disguise, at any time of the year, is our love for all you Avocado Jnrs!!!
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