Personal Narrative: Finding The Afikoman

Every year, no matter how old I got, finding the Afikomen never got easier for me, my brother, or my cousins. My family always goes to my grandparents house in New York City and joined by my father’s sister and her family, including my cousins and uncle, we celebrate Passover. With Passover comes the annual seder, traditional food, and of course the search for the Afikomen, which my grandparents hide in their apartment. In my family, this is taken very seriously with the person who finds it having bragging rights for the next year and my grandpa always treating his hiding the Afikomen like it was a real job. My grandpa always has the goal of making the Afikomen impossible to find and in the past there are times where we have not been able to find it within the time limit he sets. In past years his hiding spots have included the top of a ceiling fan and inside the paper cartridge of the printer buried under so many pieces of paper that the matzah was completely crushed at the bottom.

Once one of us eventually digs out the Afikomen what pursues is the everlasting arguing about all the cheating and unfair advantages the winner had leading to them winning (all untrue of course). The winner, along with bragging rights, has the choice to pick the first dessert made up of a selection of chocolate covered matzah and fruit, an incentive almost as large as the bragging rights. While and after we eat dessert the entire family sits together and watches baseball, usually the Mets since most of my family are Mets fans. Once it starts getting late and we all get ready to leave, my cousins, my brother, and I have one last