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As a child growing up in a Jewish home I always remember the celebrations surrounding the observance of the holiday. The week before always meant spring cleaning to get ready for the holiday. The buying and preparing the meals. Sometimes the first Seder was at our house sometimes at a relatives house.

My cousins husband's family were orthodox and when we went to a Seder in their home it would be a traditional ceremony with the reading of the hagadah with each dish that was served and the washing of the hands. The youngest child at the table would always read and take part in the ceremony.

Because both my father and his brother were not very religious or understood why certain traditions were practiced we would get together for the first sedar at one house and the other house for the second Seder. We would eat dinner without the observance of the reading of the hagadah.

Today, my mother is 88 years old and although she grew up in an orthodox home where her mother would kosher the meat or go get the fresh chicken where they would kill and pluck the feathers, now the only way she observes passover is to buy a box of matzoth and that's it.

Because of the unhappy childhood I had and because I turned to my faith and developed a bond with g-d I tend to be the only one in the family who actually changes my eating habits for the holiday. But because I have never married or had children I make my own Seder. My mother did not teach her children to look out for each other or be friends so neither my sister or I get together for the holiday.

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