Question: What can be better than a party?

Answer: A lot of parties.

I love parties and lots of parties are just amazing. Except when they overlap.

It started with a cute rhyming text from my sister-in-law on our family group inviting us to the Grand Annual Super Fantastic Extended Adler Family Party to be held the first night of Chanukah. She was making an early announcement before Rosh Chodesh so we could all schedule our other parties accordingly.

Points for good intentions but sorry dearie my mother beat you to it. She booked her party a few weeks ago to be held… Hey you’re a genius.

I posted my problem on the group. Within seconds my phone had a seizure.

Not avail first night either c’we do it second third or seventh night?

Yikes!!! Returning from EY the next morning!! Plz plz reschedule!

Third night won’t work for us — first night is best. Count me in!

Poor sister-in-law. She wasn’t hired to coordinate this; she was simply being proactive. Nobody else had volunteered to plan this party right?

Within minutes she became the family mediator. Every family has two sides. Multiply that by the number of cousins on our group and you get dizzy very fast.

I have four Chanukah parties every year. My parents’ my in-laws’ my own — which I can hold any available night (see how flexible I am?) — and the Grand Annual Super Fantastic Extended Adler Family Party.

If I could have it my way I’d choose a party every other night. Let the kids get a good night’s sleep between all the chaos. Still I’ll take back-to-back parties over overlapping parties. Definitely.

The texts continued streaming in.

Plz not first nite. I have 2 other parties booked! Thursday would be perfect — outing after Shabbos cooking.

How about Sunday afternoon only ladies and kids?

Really prefer first night but if u decide Thurs I’ll make it work.

My cousins pleaded with my sister-in-law to accommodate their schedules. Not one to lose her cool my sister-in-law posted instructions on the group: Text your Chanukah schedule to cousin so-and-so she’s going to create a spreadsheet.

This was serious business.

People think mechutanim are once-in-a-lifetime headaches the guys they have to put up with during the few months of their children’s engagements. Not so. Every Yom Tov is a test in the fabric of in-law relationships. They’re either fighting over the kids or harboring grudges against unwelcoming in-laws.

Chanukah brings the test up to a whole new level. On top of getting along with your own 11 mechutanim you need to see eye to eye with their mechutanim and their mechutanim’s mechutanim. It’s a chain that never ends and the only solution is a Chanukah miracle.

It took nearly a week before the Adlers concluded: It won’t be possible to accommodate everyone.

Guess who was out of luck? (Excerpted from Family First Issue 571)