How to Have a Fun Rosh Hashanah Dinner

If synagogue services are part of your Rosh Hashanah experience, you will have plenty of visual and auditory drama. The sound of the Shofar blast. The Torah scrolls dressed in white. The pews filled to capacity.

New this year! Downloadable Rosh Hashanah Bingo Game - great fun for 2-year-olds to grandparents! 

You can also make your Rosh Hashanah dinner at home full of spectacle - and fun.

Shofar blowing

For the past several years, we have been using Bugles as pretend shofars (shofrot).  Each year, our daughter gives us all a quick refresher on each type of shofar blast, then calls out for us:

• Tekiah! (one long single blast),
• Shevarim! (three shorter blasts),
• Teruah! (nine quick staccato blasts) and, finally,
• Tekiah G’dolah! (a single unbroken blast that you hold as long as your breath lasts)

And we all (I mean everyone, from toddlers to grandparents) picks up our Bugles and we blow!

Round, round, round

One of the key concepts for Rosh Hashanah is round - round challah, round year, round apples.

So make a game out of serving round foods. If your kids shop and plan with you, get their input. Then, at the meal, see who can guess the most rounds.

Here are a few super easy ideas:

• Cherry tomatoes
• Cucumber slices
• Green and yellow squash slices
• Canteloupe balls
• Apples (of course!)
• Doughnut holes
• Baked apples or round brownies (for dessert)

Want to do something a little more adventuresome? Check out these wonderful options on our Rosh Hashanah Pinterest page:

• Zucchini, carrot and cashew salad rolls
• Apples hollowed out with honey inside for dipping
• Tomato pops made with mozzarella balls

Planning an adult Rosh Hashanah party? Here are Rosh Hashanah drinks for grown-ups, including pomegranate sangria!

Sweet way to kick off the year

I’m a huge honey lover. Always have been. When I was a kid, we didn’t have maple syrup in the house. Honey was for pancakes, French toast, hot tea.

So to have a holiday that uses honey as a key element is fabulous. I pour amber honey into round crystal bowls that were my grandparents’. Each person has his/her own little bowl for dipping challah and apples.

And how lucky can we get? September is national honey month. 

After dinner parade

Keep the merriment going after dinner with this wonderful video called “Dip Your Apple” from the Fountainheads. We must have listened to this 100 times, because our toddler grandson loves it!

Watch a few times, then invite everyone to join in a parade – even better if you can walk in a circle inside your house!

You know how Christmas fruit cakes are often the subject of jokes – it’s too dry, it gets re-gifted repeatedly? Well, honey cake – a traditional treat for Rosh Hashanah – has had its share of similar criticism. If you have a honey cake recipe you love, please send it in. No one will be sad if I don’t reprise my from-scratch honey-and-spice cake from last Rosh Hashanah!

Please share this post with friends and family who’d like to have more fun at Rosh Hashanah dinner this year.

Shana Tova!