APIAD wrote:

What is the big deal with these things?  Really I mean no offense.  I have no clue what they are about.

It is the Jewish ascention to manhood, or womanhood in the case of a 13-year-old girl. There's a ceremony followed by a reception attended by family members and friends who eat, drink and be merry, all at the expense of the Bar Mitzvah's parents.
Think of Kim Kardashian's wedding with approximately 500 pimply teenagers.
 

APIAD wrote:

not to be a dick but it seems kind of silly...  to tell a 13 year old he is a man?  i am 30 and dont know if ive earned that right.  the cost seems over the top.

The whole thing is silly, AP. But it's not about him. It's about women competing with each other about which one of them can throw a more impressive party, just like their weddings.
 

33 days until the big event. We've been snowed in for the past 48 hours and my wife hasn't spent any money, so this afternoon she went out and wasted a couple hundred bucks on the most useless crap I've ever seen, including plastic glasses with frames that light up and these things she described as "glowing balls," much to the amusement of my son and his two friends who were with him at the time.

26 days to go. For some reason, our Jewish friends keep congratulating me. For what, I have no idea. Signing the checks? Procrastinating writing the 5-minute speech I'm to give?
 

This thread does create a fun situation though.

Which will happen first--Zach's bar mitzvah or Kyle Lohse signs with a major league team?

forsberg_us wrote:

I'm so happy I don't have to go through anything similar with Bob.

The thing that sucks is I can't imagine that Zach (or any other 13 year old boy) really cares about this sort of thing.  Maybe it's just my kid, but if I told Bob he could have any kind of party he wanted when he turned 13, I'd be out renting a couple of flat screen TVs, along with a couple of game consoles and setting up our family room as a hub where Bob and a group of his friends could hang out and play online video games for an uninterrupted weekend.  About every couple of hours throw 3-4 pizzas into the middle of the crowd and I'd be the coolest dad in the school district.

Come to think of it, with pre-teen, early-teenaged boys I'd probably have to hire a stripper or let them watch late night Cinemax to be the coolest dad in the district, but either of those is still cheaper than what you're going through.

That's about right. Zach is entirely non-plussed by the whole thing, at least so far. He's been studying for this since he was about 8-years-old, so he's got his part memorized. He hasn't learned a syllable of Hebrew beyond what he's been required to learn. It's like he's one of those Latin singers who learns just enough English to sing it on their record. And he's been to enough Bar Mitzvahs as a guest by now to know what he's in for.

Yesterday's calamity involved an RSVP from the neighbors across the street. We invited the adults only (hoping they'd be spending the weekend at their house in Maine), and got back a response that their three kids, including their middle child who is extremely disruptive, would also be coming. Of course, my wife went into a snit  because she only sent them an invite in the first place because all our other neighbors were invited. But now what do you do? Call them and tell them they have to leave their kids at home?

Today's adventure is trying to find Zach a suit. I've been amazed at how hard it is to find a suit that fits a 13-year-old. We've struck out at three places so far, the most notable of which was Brooks Brothers, on Monday night. The suit that came the closest to fitting him was, according to the salesman, "only nine ninety-eight." My wife asked me what I thought. My response was "Depends upon where the decimal point is."

Allow me to suggest the following

http://www.cafepress.com/+bow-tie+t-shirts

forsberg_us wrote:

Allow me to suggest the following

http://www.cafepress.com/+bow-tie+t-shirts

See, this works for me. Get it done for under 30 bucks. And if I put it up for a family vote, it would be 2-1 in favor. But I'm guessing my wife would exercise veto power that I'm not sure she's ever been granted.
 

alz wrote:

I don't really care about the bar mitzvah, but that chair thing they do at Jewish weddings looks fun, is there anyway I can swing that without being Jewish?

Just asking!

 
As long as you get a band that knows Hava Nagila and you're paying, you can do anything you want.
They tried to lift my dad up on the chair. He weighed about 300 pounds at the time. Two of my friends pulled muscles and a third had to have a hernia operation.

We got the suit yesterday. On the advice of about a dozen people who have had a similar issue finding Bar Mitzhav clothes for their kids, we ended up going to a store in a city called Newton. Noting saying Newton has a significant Jewish population, but it's called the Garden City because there's a Rosenbloom on every corner.

Ba-Doom!!

Max wrote:

March 14?

March 16. My math might have been off. 
The BM has been on the back-burner for me this week because my boss is on vacation, but we had the cake-tasting this past Saturday. My choice was vanilla with chocolate frosting, but of course I got out-voted, 2-1. I'm losing a lot of these 2-1 votes lately.

"Oh, and we're spending $600 on ice cream. But it's OK. My wife is getting a deal because she has a prior business relationship with the ice cream guy. He normally charges $1,200. For ... ice .. cream ..."

Christ.  Are Ben and Jerry themselves coming to make it for you?

forsberg_us wrote:

"Oh, and we're spending $600 on ice cream. But it's OK. My wife is getting a deal because she has a prior business relationship with the ice cream guy. He normally charges $1,200. For ... ice .. cream ..."

Christ.  Are Ben and Jerry themselves coming to make it for you?

That gets me thinking I should just buy a cow and make my own ice cream. And then after this shindig is over I'd still have livestock.
I've been told this isn't ordinary ice cream. This is liquid nitrogen ice cream. I have no idea why liquid nitrogen makes for better ice cream, and honestly at this point I've begun not to care. I've now developed a numbing sensation in my brain that I'm hoping spreads to other parts of my body, specifically my left hand so I won't be able to write out any more checks.