Mary Hofmann, one of our Hadracha'08 participants from Merced, California tells us about her weekly Shabbat traditions:

"I didn't realize it, but I've been readopting Shabbat for some time. Our tiny, isolated congregation started having Erev Shabbat potlucks and lay services to end our week by relaxing with friends. Wonderful. Then my first grandson hit three years old, so I vowed to resurrect our long-fallow religious school (we've been around a while!).  Why not on Shabbat? Turned out seven kids (ranging, terrifyingly, from 2 to 10 years) showed up, so we tagged an hour of Hebrew on for good measure. After the kids went home, the Hebrew teacher and I started having lunch . . . and maybe a little Torah study. One day we decided to go to a movie in town, something we rarely ever do, and dragged my husband along. Also wonderful, so we've kept doing it.  By then, of course, it was almost time for dinner and I included my grandkids because my daughter works Saturday night. When it started getting dark, we did Havdallah--the babies LOVE Havdallah. We kept it. We kept it all.  And, by golly, it's become our Shabbat tradition.  Maybe a little untraditional (okay, very untraditional), but it's special to us now and it works!"

Thank you for sharing with us Mary! We look forward to hearing from the rest of you!