As someone who’s making a bar mitzvah for the first time, people keep asking me, “Are you excited to be making a bar mitzvah?”

Excited? I don’t know. There’s not really going to be a significant change in my life between now and after the bar mitzvah, except that I’ll have a teenager. And I teach teenagers. This is not something to celebrate.

Sure, I understand that this is a big simcha for my son, because he’s entering the age where he’s mechuyav b’mitzvos, and we’re happy for him. And he has his own awkward questions to fend off too, such as the one that countless mommies asked me when I became bar mitzvah: “How does it feel?”

I don’t know that there’s a difference.

“Um…sweatier?”

But I mostly haven’t gotten to think about how I feel because I don’t have time. I have way too much to do for this bar mitzvah. And I’m probably forgetting something.

So I’ve made a list. (The list doesn’t include food. That’s a whole separate list):

HALL

The good thing about bar mitzvahs is that you can generally do it in the kiddush room of a shul. The only thing is that you need to make sure the room is big enough for the number of people who are coming, which you don’t know until they send in the reply cards, which they can’t do until you send them invitations, which you can’t do until you have a hall.

INVITATIONS

Once you have a hall, you need to print out invitations, despite the fact that everyone you know has some other method of finding out electronically. You need to give them something concrete that they can hang on the fridge until about three months after the bar mitzvah.

REPLY CARDS

There are a few different formats for these. Most people either make a checklist of options—“will attend,” “will not attend,” “will attend but doesn’t eat dessert,” etc.—or they just put “will ___ attend,” so that guests can either write “not” if they’re not coming, or, if they are coming, they can be unsure of what to do with the space. Do they write “IY”H”? But then if they’re not coming, shouldn’t they write “Will IY”H not attend”? Do they write “b’li neder”? “Probably”? Or do they just write “Will too attend,” like they’re having an argument about it? That’s not your problem; it’s your guests.’ You’re already paying for their postage.

BENCHERS

You should probably print out benchers because you’re serving food, and no one thinks before they go to a simcha, “Hey, they’re serving food! We might need a bencher!” But that might be because every simcha provides benchers. So if you’re not providing benchers, you should specifically mention it on the invitation.

MUSICIAN

The most cost-effective route here is to go with a one-man band, and if you get to choose the one man, I would say it should probably be a keyboard guy. But you don’t have to listen to me. I don’t mean to take parnassah away from all the harmonica players.

PHOTOGRAPHER

People question hiring photographers at all these days, seeing as everyone already has a camera. But who’s taking pictures when everyone’s dancing? It’s not like the guys who stand on the sidelines are doing it. Plus photographers have better equipment, like those 10-foot umbrella sticks. And bowties. A lot of photographers wear bowties, because regular ties get stuck in the camera straps. And because they know no one’s taking pictures of them.

TABLECLOTHS

I put this on the list at the behest of my wife, because left to my own devices, I wouldn’t have even thought of tablecloths. I know this for a fact because when we go on day trips and I pack the food, we find a picnic table and my wife goes, “Okay, where’s the tablecloth?” and I go, “Tablecloth!”

Every time.

GEMACHS

Simchas are a good time to figure out how your local gemachs work. There’s a tablecloth gemach and a centerpiece gemach and a schnapps gemach, and you have to return every item to exactly the right gemach, because they get very snippy about it.

“These aren’t our tablecloths. We gave you schnapps.”

“Yeah, well, we spilled the schnapps on the tablecloths.”

WRITE SPEECHES

And the bar mitzvah boy has to have time to practice his, so he doesn’t sound like he needs to be taken out of the bar mitzvah and put into Resource Room. (What a great name. Why doesn’t the regular classroom have resources?)

The main part of your speech, as the father, is of course all the thank yous, like thanking everyone for coming, especially since their reply cards said they were coming, and you already figured out tables. You should also thank your son’s grandparents for always being there, even when you didn’t want them to be there, and for never mixing in more than they felt was necessary. And of course, you should thank your wife for everything she did, especially the things you would have missed had you put this whole thing together yourself, such as tablecloths and centerpieces and cutlery.

Cutlery!

Every time.

By Mordechai Schmutter

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He also has six books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].