Shopping6, I understand your puzzlement. Some of it comes from your having a hard time putting yourself into other people’s shoes. As someone already mentioned to you, in a family with, let’s say, 4 children and the oldest is 6, the mother is the one cleaning all the bedrooms. And trying desperately to keep the one and two year olds from sprinkling cheerios and pretzel crumbs all over the freshly cleaned carpets and furniture. And in a family with 4 teenage boys and 2 sons-in-law coming for Yom Tov, there’s going to have to be a well-stocked fridge and freezer and no amount of kugel will manage to satisfy them all. Every family is dealing with their own set of circumstances the best way they can. For many women, it’s a pleasure to sit down at a beautifully set Seder table in a gleaming house. And for others, just providing the requisite karpas, maror, charoses and a very abbreviated shulchan orech has sapped all their kochos to the limit.
It’s beautiful and amazing to see that 2,000 years after Yetzias Mitzrayim we’re all doing our utmost to fulfill “Tashbisu se’or mibateichem” and to pass on to our children sippur yetzias mitzrayim while observing the Mitzvos of Pesach, as a privilege and a joy. All of us to the best of our ability.
(I would tell DY though, that if I could afford one expensive vacation, I would take it AFTER spending Pesach in my own home. But that’s just me….)