Tu Bishvat

Tonight we had dinner with friends. A shabbat dinner, Friday night and all, with people pretty well more observant than I am (a post for another day). The part that was interesting to me was that part of the celebration tonight was in recognition of Tu Bishvat.

The holiday is sort of the spring harvest festival; a difficult thing to be in the correct mindset for after breaking in the new snowblower on 6" of freshly accumulated snow on the driveway (that could also be a post for another day). There was lots of fruit and an interesting twist on wine drinking where everyone starts with a glass of white - representing winter - and then as you drink the white wine you top it off with red - representing the life of the spring - until eventually you wind up with a glass of red wine.

(there's another another post here about an interesting dinner with food pairings for dynamically changing wine color. That post might be beyond my skill-set though).

I've never to my recollection taken part in any celebration of this holiday to date in my life, and yet it played a significant part in my growing up. All through dinner tonight I was thinking of my Mother.

I guess Mom really didn't know anything about the holiday either, particularly when it was. So one of her standard responses to when we were going to do something or see someone would be "next Tu Bushvat." I guess it was her way of saying "5th of never." So along with all the bits and pieces I learned tonight about the holiday, and along with the humor I tried to find by crossing this holiday with Passover (yes, another another another post) and by asking when we would celebrate Trombonisvat... with all of those things I got to think a lot about my mom.

It's too bad I think. From what know about the holiday I think mom would have enjoyed Tu Bishvat had it been something to her more than an expression.