Shabbat Supper Club
Last Friday we hosted our first Shabbat Supper Club!
This Supper Club started as a need to feel more connected to our Jewish Heritage and also start making traditions with our kiddos, which hopefully they will continue when they are older.
When I was growing up, we had dinner at Abuela's Sara every Friday night and that is something everyone in our family looked forward too. Even as teenagers, we enjoyed getting together and catching up with cousins.
Unfortunately for my kids, all their cousins live abroad, so having Shabbat dinners with their friends made sense.
My husband and I met this group of couples five years ago when we were expecting our first child and we joined Jewish Baby University, a prenatal class that not only focuses on childbirth experience, but helps parent-to be learn how to create a Jewish environment to raise their child in. We had classes every Monday for 6 weeks and once the classes ended, and our kids were born, we all kept in touch. We've shared wonderful memories (birthday parties, Hanukkah dinners, outings, etc.) with this group of parents and kids.
My kids don't attend a religious preschool, so I am always trying to find ways to bring some Judaism into our home. Our oldest is now attending Sunday school and we just finished a wonderful class called Training Wheels, where parents and kids learn about Jewish traditions and holidays through activities and crafts.
Now that my kids are older we started celebrating Shabbat at home and as of May, we will be celebrating Shabbat with our friends.
The whole idea of Shabbat Supper Club is to get together with friends once a month and have a kid friendly dinner. We decided to rotate houses, so it makes easy for everyone. When I sent out an email proposing this idea, four families decided to join us. With five families in the group, each family only gets to host Shabbat twice a year.
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| Lighting the candles |
We try to make things easy for the host family by making it a potluck. The family hosting the dinner is in charge of the entrée and everyone else brings a dish (appetizer, Challah/wine, salad and dessert).
My kids were very excited to have their friends come over for dinner and they wanted to help set their table and even suggested they needed flower at the kids table.
We covered both of the kids' tables with craft paper, wrote a little welcome note for them and we placed some crayons and stickers on each place setting so the kids could decorate their tablecloth.
Saying the prayer over challah
Since our firstborns are only a few months apart, we celebrated their birthdays this time. It was so special to realize they literally have known each other since they were born, and now they were celebrating their 5th birthday!
Happy birthday to our 5 year olds!
We lit candles, we ate challah, we celebrated our kids' birthdays, we sang and we danced. It was a beautiful night!
I am excited to celebrate many more Shabbat nights with this group and I hope more of friends will join us next time.
Shabbat Shalom!
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