A Bittersweet Place

“So, have you booked a place yet?”  I dread those words, yet I am hearing them with more and more frequency as sixth grade draws to a close for my son and seventh grade – replete with bar mitzvahs every weekend – looms on the horizon.  I know that each party will outshine the last, that nubile young dancers will entice both kids and adults onto the floor – a practice I find creepy at best.  (Sorry if that offends anyone – but, come on – lycra-clad, cleavage bearing young women dancing with barely pubescent boys?)  I know that flash will rule and the centerpieces will likely be breathtaking.   That is not me, nor is it my son – I think.  But, when he starts reveling at party after party, will he be disappointed in a more down to earth celebration?

 

A bar mitzvah on Long Island can easily run upwards of $40,000 to $50,000 – all that glitz doesn’t come cheap.  But, when I do the math in my head, I realize that if I shell out that kind of cash to host three bar mitzvahs – with a grand total likely well over $120,000 – I will blow my opportunity to move my family into a bigger home or perhaps to send my children to college without loans – that’s if I even manage to scrape together that serious a chunk of change.  If not, if I steal from Peter to pay Paul – running up credit card debt – well, I don’t think we’d ever escape from that kind of financial hole.  So, I’ve been doing the only thing I can – not thinking about it and hoping I win the lottery. 

 

When I asked D. what he wants, his response was actually, “No party.”  He wants to go to Israel.  This shocked me – I expected him to want the whole shebang.  Unfortunately, right now Israel is not an option, but perhaps some day – maybe when my youngest becomes a bar mitzvah.  I would imagine it is far easier to travel to Israel with three teenagers, than with a 13 year old, an 11 year old and a 7 year old.  My kids are restless on a drive from Long Island to Boston.  We practically have to bring an entire refrigerator in the car with us.  Traveling halfway around the world?  Not going to be ready for that in a year and a half. 

 

So, with Israel off the table, D. wants a “sports party.”  He would be happy as a pig in poop with a bar mitzvah in which sports was the only thing on the menu.  OK – food, yes – but, no dresses and monkey suits, no dance floor, no overactive MC.  So, that leaves me with the decision – do I rent a sports facility – maybe the Y – and have a party that D. and the kids love, but the grown ups could pass on?  Or do I go for the sedate luncheon – with a DJ, of course?  Good food, hopefully good conversation and lots to celebrate with friends and family.  Do I follow in my family’s tradition and go for the whole shebang?    Well, $40,000 for a party is out of the question, but I could cut out the photo booth and the air brush stand and the dancers and – I guess I’d have to cut a lot.  D. only wants a chocolate fountain – we can do that.  Not at the Y, though. 

 

This all seemed to come about so quickly.  I got his date almost two and a half years ago and it seemed so far away – almost four years.  Way too long to even think about it, but now it’s creeping up.  I still have a year and five months to plan.   I planned a wedding in a year; I think I can plan a bar mitzvah in that time.  Maybe my hesitancy has more to do with my inability to even digest the notion that I will have a teenager – a man according to Jewish law – in such a short time.  When did this happen?  How did this happen?  It truly seems like I was just pregnant for the first time – the most magical pregnancy of all three.  Everything seemed like a miracle – everything was a miracle.  I even felt movement for the first time on my thirtieth birthday – what a gift.  My mother told me, “Enjoy the first one – there’s nothing like it.”  Boy, she was right. 

 

You know, after I wrote the paragraph above, I got seriously choked up – tears spilling on to my cheeks.  And, I realized that this blog post is actually about something far different than I thought it was about.  I was musing about the craziness, the “Keeping Up With the Steins” aspect of planning a bar mitzvah and how I just want to avoid it, how I just want to stick my head under a pillow every time I think about catering halls and DJs and menus.  But, now I see that it’s really about my reluctance to face the fact that my first baby is growing up – that before I know it, he will be a man.  It dawned on me a few weeks ago that I am as close to having my first child leave the nest for college as I am to my last pregnancy.  I am halfway between the early stages of an empty nest and childbearing.  It is a bittersweet place to be.  I am proud of the young man D. is well on his way to becoming, but sometimes I yearn to go back to the small child he was. 

 

It seems like yesterday that I was planning D’s third birthday party – not thirteenth.  I pulled out all the stops – it was the first birthday party we hosted in our very own backyard – not the shared square of grass outside of our apartment.  I spent days painting three cardboard boxes blue, red and green, then painstakingly drawing on faces, transforming the boxes into Thomas, James and Percy.  I printed out railroad tickets and spread out a lavish brunch.  (At least lavish by three year old party standards – mini quiches and assorted pasta salads didn’t show up on most toddler party menus.)   If the last nine years went by that fast, how quickly will the next nine go? 

 

When I hug D. now, he is solid.  He is only a fraction shorter than I am and his shoes are far bigger than mine on the boot tray.  But, I hold onto the fact that I am still a pretty important person in his life, at least for now.  For Mother’s Day, he wrote me a song.  As he sang and strummed his guitar, my eyes filled with tears.  He crooned, “I love you, Mom.  I always will.  When my heart’s empty, you make it full.”  I can only hope he feels that way even when he’s grown into a man…

D's third birthday. Can't believe we'll be lighting candles on his bar mitzvah cake next year... 

Comments

[Janzdesign]

hi stephanie...i recently met your husband; he miraculously fixed my dead laptop! he told me you were a writer and emailed me your blog.....so, i may get hooked!
anyway, there is a place in syosset called 'ultimate gaga'...a big open 'sports' place that i thought might be great for a 'sports' bar mitzvah.....you might want to check it out if you go that route....

[Stephanie Kepke]

Thanks so much for your interest in my blog! And, thank you for the telling me about Ultimate Gaga - amazingly I have never been there (with three boys, I thought I had hit all of the party places). I will certainly look into it, if we go that route. My boys love gaga. They play it at camp all summer. Thanks again for taking the time to read my blog and I'm glad Jeff was able to save your laptop :-)

[Steve]

Hi Stephanie,

My wife and I are planning our daughter's bat mitzvah that is less than 6 weeks away. Our daughter has now been to several "LI" bat/bar mitzvah, we live in Syosset, and has her own ideas. She is ADAMENT about wanting dancers, something my wife and I didn't believe were necessary when booking the dj. I see you and your husband had your own dancer issue with your son. I would like to know how it turned out and if you believe that dancers are, in fact, necesasary. We certainly don't want to ruin her bat mitzvah by not having dancers, I would guess two are the minimum that make sense, but we don't want to pay a thousand dollars for no reason either.

Any advice you can offer will be most appreciated.

Thank you and good luck with your future bar mitzvahs. We have a future, 3+ years, bat mitzvah ourselves.

Steve

[Stephanie Kepke]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for your comment! I'm happy to give you advice :) We did end up with two dancers at my son's bar mitzvah, but we did everything a la cart and we added them the week before. Crazy - I know, but it ended up being a lot cheaper that way. We also completely changed the decor three days before party. I was guest blogger on Mitzvah Market and all the details of our party (and the last minute changes) are in my final blog post here: http://www.mitzvahmarket.com/blog/mitzvah-diaries-on-a-wing-and-a-prayer-6/ If you scroll down to the bottom, you can find all of my other posts on planning quickly and on a budget. I ended doing most of the planning only three months before, because my father unexpectedly passed away six months before the party. And yes, I do think the dancers added to the party - we had two. They kept the kids entertained and played games with them too. I hope this is helpful. Let me know what you decide to do. Good luck and mazel tov!!