DAD: Thank you all so much for coming. Like every year, we’re going to go around in a circle and read selections from the Haggadah. Everyone will get a turn and no one will be bored.

MOM: Everyone fill up your glasses! Bill, wine?

WACKY UNCLE: I don’t want to sing “Dayenu” too loudly again, threateningly emphasizing the ‘die’ part while glaring at my ex-wife, so I’ll stick with grape juice.

DAD: Is everyone ready to read?

SCAPEGOAT CHILD: Oh boy, I hope I get appointed ‘evil son’ again…

Julie Shain imagines the Passover Seder You Didn’t Have: http://nyr.kr/XlrqRN

Bronfman said that he wrote his version of the Haggadah, the text that guides the Passover meal while telling the story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt, with children in mind. “I was thinking that their ears would be open that night if you tried to gently teach them what Judaism is all about,” he said in a short speech. “I don’t believe in God,” he said later. “I do believe in Judaism. I believe in ethics, morals. Our gifts to humanity are enormous. I remind everybody that the Sabbath was the Jewish gift to civilization.”

Bronfman’s Haggadah, which is illustrated with watercolors by his wife, Jan Aronson, includes quotations from such goyim as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and there is no Hebrew in it. God is depicted as an “energy,” as opposed to an anthropomorphic deity, and Moses plays a starring role…

John Ortved attends the launch party of Edgar Bronfman Sr.’s new version of the Haggadah: http://nyr.kr/X5dHyt

Mr. Kringle,

Hi, this is the dry cleaner calling about your red suit. You were right—it’s a bullet hole.

Shouts & Murmurs — January Messages for Santa: http://nyr.kr/XjuYUW

Happy Holidays! Click-through for a selection of Magnum photographs from the past fifty-seven years of winter holidays and New Year’s celebrations: http://nyr.kr/ZAUOFh

There’s a time of year, in late November and early December, when Christmas shopping is thoughtful, even contemplative. Then there’s this time of year….

A reflection on the art of giving the perfect gift: http://nyr.kr/WmAiCE

Cartoon by William Haefeli. For more: http://nyr.kr/SRZnG7

Cartoon by Carolita Johnson. For more from this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/RlC1dL

The power’s back on! Let’s dry our socks,

And turn the volume down on Fox,

Mix up a vat of eggnog, brandied,

And fling a last Bronx cheer at Sandy.

Kick out the jams! Swing wide the gates!

Yeah, everybody—celebrate!

Come on in, friends. Pull up a chair,

Or hunker by the fireplace there…

Continue reading Ian Frazier’s holiday poem: http://nyr.kr/UosJKl

Cartoon by William Haefeli. For more: http://nyr.kr/SHCdQY

(Source: newyorker.com)