Chag Sameach! (Happy Passover)

This weekend marks the beginning of Passover. I'm not a particularly observant Jew (read not observant at all), but

Passover is one of my favorite holidays so we pretty much always have a seder. I like the message of how important freedom is and how none of us are free while any are enslaved. The numbers wax and wane, but this year there will be 21 of us gathering at my house to tell the story of how Moses led the Jews out of Egypt.

And that's where this whole thing ties back into books and writing.

I often say that I come from a family of storytellers. My uncle is a published author. My cousin's first book spent weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. The only reason my sister isn't a multi-published award-winning bestselling author is because she won't sit down and type her stories on the computer. Some of my best lines have come directly from her lips. We spend hours telling each other stories, sometimes the same stories. We laugh. We cry. We come together over story. So this holiday is pretty much made for us.

It is incumbent upon all Jewish parents to tell the story of the Exodus to their children. It's apparently also incumbent upon us to make them eat gefilte fish, make them steal a half a piece of matzah and demand payment for it, and make them drink too much. I'm pretty sure every Jewish person had their first real hangover the day after a Passover seder.

It's these kinds of experiences that I think helped make me into a writer. What about you? Are there any rituals in your family that made you who you are?