From the time our children were small up, until bar/bas mitzva age or so, we made it a point to develop Jewish themes for our family’s Purim costumes, where each of us had an essential role. We felt that, while there is nothing wrong with a child dressing up as, say, Batman or a baseball player, Purim created an opportunity to have fun in a specifically Jewish way. Weeks in advance of Purim each year, we set to work on a Torah-related costume that called for the participation of everyone in our family of four (we, the parents, and our boy and girl twins).
One year, we were a sukka – a walking one! When we arrived at a house to deliver shalach manos, we’d position ourselves in front of the house and do our “assembly” thing. With each of carrying a custom-fitted cardboard sukka “wall” strapped to his/her back, we drew close into square “sukka formation,” and placed a piece of cardboard schach on top!
Another year, we were a walking and twirling dreidel. Again, with custom-fitted cardboard panels on our backs, and a contraption for the dreidel top, we assembled ourselves inside the homes we visited. It was a bit clumsy but well worth it to see the smiles that our extravaganza elicited.
Another Purim, we marched in a straight row through the local streets, each of us bearing two tall mock candles symmetrically arranged on a horizontal bar – eight in all – to form a menorah. It’s amazing where a little ingenuity and some silver paint-sprayed PVC pipe can get you.
We were applauded for our mostly successful efforts each year, however we’re not ashamed to say that one year our family costume more or less flopped. We meant to be the daled minim. Mother and daughter carried a large bright yellow esrog-shaped panel with holes cut out to look through, while father and son carried a bundle of well-intended replicas of the other three species. The letdown came when walking along Menlo Drive on Purim, a driver dressed up as a clown came over to us and said, “I know what you are. You’re an asparagus, no?”
The Family that Dresses Up Together….
by Avi Tannenbaum
