Is anyone out there surviving financially? I, for one, am not. Pesach itself set me back so seriously. In addition to the cost of making Yom Tov with the sky-high prices of Pesach food - and food in general, there were Afikoman presents to buy and Chol Hamoed trips to go on. This all made my already dire financial situation that much more disastrous.I'm betting that most of the readers here can already guess what Wolf & SL responded, but it's worth it to see what they each added as well. Oy.
Take eight kids to an amusement part on Chol Hamoed and you'll walk out having spent close to $200. For what? And if, chas veshalom we don't take our kids on a Chol Hamoed trip every single day, somehow we are lacking as parents. That's the feeling we get. So the day after the amusement park, we went to the Liberty Science Center. That, too, cost a veritable fortune. On the third day of Chol Hamoed, I said that instead of going on a trip, we would go buy Afikoman presents. Frankly, the Chol Hamoed trip would probably have been a bargain compared to the prices we paid at the toy store. On Erev Shabbos, the last day of Chol Hamoed, we took the kids bowling. Who would imagine that you would have to pay well over $100 for a family to play two games of knocking down some bowling pins?
Friday, May 02, 2008
Hopeless Needs Help
The experts have already covered this, so check out Sephardi Lady and Wolf's posts responding to a letter to the editor in the Yated. Excerpt from the letter:
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"In my day, we didn't have Afikoman presents for toys. We got rusty nails and big bags of broken glass! That's the way it was, and we liked it!...We loved it!"
ReplyDeleteWe never got afikoman presents, and we NEVER went to amusement parks. And guess what - we all survived. Why do these parents think they need to be slaves to their children?
ReplyDeleteG,
ReplyDeleteLet me guess... And the Cos Shel Eliyahu was a rolled up newspaper.
Sheeeeesh. I think, iirc, if we got Afikoman presents, it was getting to pick first (if you found it) out of a bag of small presents, like paperback books or small toys or something. Or if I knew there was a new book I wanted to get and it was close to Pesach, my mother would sometimes buy it and make me wait (teaching delayed gratification--also not a bad thing for kids to learn). None of this "go to the toy store and have a party with Mommy's credit card" business!
ReplyDeleteAnd chol hamoed trips? Are you joking? Both my parents worked; chol hamoed was spent at the workplace of one or both parents or at the "vacation camp" held at the local J.C.C. Amusement parks? Yeah, right.
When did we forget how to say "no"?
ReplyDeleteG, Avrom - LOL
ReplyDeleteApple - I dunno...
Scraps - I was fine with hanging out with my friends and the occasional IX-Center day.
Baila - This is the Q...
Ezzie,
ReplyDeleteThe rolled up newspaper reference was from a Monty Python skit where a bunch of old timers tries to "outdo" each other on how horrible it was in the old days when they were growing up.
"When we could barely afford a cup of tea."
"Aye, a cup of cold tea"
"without milk, or sugar..."
"or tea."
"In a cracked cup and all"
"We never had a cup! We used to drink out of a rolled up newspaper!"
"Best we could do was suck on a damp cloth."
And the punch line:
"...and when you tell that to the young folk today... they won't believe you. Nope!"
Hehe! That's funnier. :)
ReplyDelete