Thursday, September 18, 2008

Traditions

My previous post about the upcoming festival/holiday season got me thinking about how I would celebrate Diwali this year. I thought and thought and thought and came up with ... nothing :(

See, growing up, we didn't have any traditions we followed for the festivals. All we ever did was travel! Diwali, Christmas, summer holidays, any holiday and we were out visiting some new place. I would love to follow that "tradition" forever, but the hubby is not so keen on it. His family also didn't have anything in particular that they did, other than the fireworks.

This being my first Diwali after my wedding, I would like to start some sort of fun tradition that we can follow on every year (goes easy on the planning too!). We're not religious at all, so pujas and things are out. I can go visit the temple, but that's kind of einhhh....I know I want to do the rangoli and lights thing, but that is hardly anything.
So far, all I have come up with is this...
Rangoli
Lights
Cook something nice (the same thing every year though, and make it ONLY for Diwali!) Need to learn some good mithai.

That's all... a bit too boring if I may say so. So please help! Share your holiday traditions with me (diwali, christmas, eid, any kind of family tradition is good!) The more unusual, the better :)
So go on, inspire me! Pleeeeeeaaaase!

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pot Luck!

I am said...

go sky diving :) or para gliding :) some sky activity :)

~ ॐ ~ said...

make him a kurta :)

aneri_masi said...

@sunshine, sounds good...doable!

@tanu, you have NOOO idea how darpok I am! I won't jump from 2 feet height! And doing this every year, baapre! first year mein hi I will die

@prashant, this one i like! A lot!

Ankur said...

Diwali is far so wont advice u to take rest from ur busy schedule, but then u can invite people over... have a nice camp fire, have fireworks and crackers and show angrezs over there our tradition... :)

Also, to make that day special, help someone knowingly and intentionally (i mean we keep helping ppl aise hi, but this day u do it knowing u r doing it!! )...

Cheers!!

I am said...

so u r planning to make RED KURTA, I believe :P :) ??

aneri_masi said...

@ankur, Thank you! I really like the idea of helping out. I guess I can sign up for some volunteer work that weekend or something. Thanks dear!

@tanu, hahahaha :) maybe, red IS good.

Ankur said...

arre thanks wanks nahi, i cant think of anything crazy for diwali ... it simply is wat i love festival!! :D :D

already gettin calls from my jaan(cousin rem?), that he wants all the crackers in the world when i come home... hahaha

Solitaire said...

I don't think what you have listed is boring.

That is my yearly diwali ritual with the limited resources I have.

Make laddoos.
Put up lights and diyas.
Make a rangoli.
Invite people.

Makes me happy!

D said...

I spend a lot of time pre-Diwali picking up the right Laxmi Ganesha for my mandir, getting fancy adornments to decorate the mandir and pretty garlands for all the gods and goddesses that reside there. Of course, there's the lights and rangoli bit as well.

I'm a huge sucker for going totally filmi on festivals! So for Diwali puja, I dress up in all my finery - lehenga, jewellery - the traditional look, you know. And after the puja, all the friends meet up at a common friend's place for a frie cracker show followed by dinner and what else, cards! It's supposed to be lucky to play cards on Diwali.

All that might still be boring, I realise!

--xh-- said...

if you light diya and make rangoli, dont forget to take snaps.. :) would love to see them...

Renu said...

For me Diwali means...
cleaning the whole house.
Changing the settings and may be add something new.
bring out all my silk bedspreads and curtains or decorate my windows with coloful dupattas and all that.
Light up the whole house( actually that is my H's job.
make rangoli in the front then one for pooja and numerous small decorations on the floor and then...foot prints of Lakshmiji
Decorate the house with marigold.
make a variety of sweets and snacks, distribute around.
Distribute new clothes to my employees and of course sweets.
Then make a sumptous dinner with dahi bada and all that and sometimes play cards with the friends.
No crackers for me--i am an environment friend

♥ÐÅyÐяєÅмє®♥ said...

didi....
dan punya karo...satisfaction milega :P

aur fst time patakhe bhi chalao..US mein patakhe nhi foda toh kya kiya :P
and koi gujju family dekho aur mithai leke unke ghar chale jao celebrate karne :P

megha puNAter" said...

cook together,light diyas put on an old bollywood movie and enjoy

ceedy said...

Guess simply enjoy it now!

I like to follow the tradition from back home....and do small chopda pujan and obviously make nice sweets...had a star lantern - used to put it up...

~ ॐ ~ said...

idea mast nahin hua to kya idea hua :)

do let me know if you go ahead with this one :)

Cinderella said...

Di, Vrij has a ques for you.
:)

Pri said...

well i help by polishing off the sweets ;)
waise having fun is the wayy to go...be it any festival, enjoy it dil se!

by the by, im here to invite u to join in the 'ONLINE ANTAKSHARI' on my blog--nostalgic moments...
cant get around visiting u ppl much nowadays...but will surely try my best to make up for it once things fall in place a little...

till then, lets YENJOY!:)

Mysterious Mia said...

teh night of diwali or the weekend of diwali we have a taash party...i mean cards.....in the north of india tats the tradition atleast in my family...so until morning we gamble....they say laxmi aati hai hehehe

well anyways i continued the tradition in sydney....had friends over n we used to play cards n all hehe

DeeplyDip said...

Diwali for us is lots of puja ofcourse but at the same time we do the following:
Hold at least one card session in our house and visit a few more during the month of diwali
We visit all our close friends personally to give them the diwali souvenir (the task of selecting,packing etc itself is a big one). It's great fun meeting everyone at this time and then they visit us at our place too.
On diwali day like D said, we like to go totally traditional - dress up to the hilt, make some finger food to serve the guests, rangoli is a must, so are the lightings, diyas and fireworks
We never travel on Diwali! Since we believe the goddess is visting us during this time, we never leave our place of work.
Me and my husband usually go out for dinner with friends, but my mom says it's a tradition to make some mix bhaji for sure - like pav bhaji, tehri etc (again depends on family customs. So I make that for dinner and eat a bit before going out!
This itself takes pretty much of our time. And this is how we always celebrate so can't help much with any different ideas :)
Would love to know what you finally decide on

my space said...

Wel Aneri...i do the following
clean my house-all drawers and shelves!
Make Mithai
Buy Diyas..basic ones and paint them and decorate them too
Make Rangoli--make that attempt--it is always pathetic!
Light the Diyas
decorate mandir
Put kandeel
invite friends or go over to their place
burst crackers--v few..actually my kids do
dress in all my finery
call and wish my family and friends
buy a little something in gold--on dhanteras day
so there lots of things to choose from!!
Of course you could club this all with a campfire,skydiving, red kurta ;-)

aneri_masi said...

@sol, thanks.

@d, not boring at all. But I can't do most of those things...puja I don't do, and friends, I have very very few who almost always have plans of their own. I envy you your celebrations re! I wish i had such a hara-bhara social circle.

@xh, of course, half the things I do just so I can take a picture ;)

@renu, oh yeah, now I remember...my mom used to do the cleaning too. She would empty out everything... And no crackers for me too..am scared of them, and allergic to the smoke! I did get some good pointers from your list. Thanks!

aneri_masi said...

@sourish, yeah, ankur already suggested the daan-punya thing, and that's on my list. Crackers ke liye yaar city se persmission leni padti hai. And why gujju family?

@prashant, oh yes, I will go ahead with it, but next year. Abhi not enough expertise for that. But hoga zaroor!

@pri, what all do you guys do?

aneri_masi said...

@mia, I heard about that from my hubby's bhabhi, ke taash khelte hain. Will need a nice big crowd for it though...humare yahaan friends ki zara kami hai :(

@deeplydip, sounds like a fun time, yaar! I will definitely update with what I decide to go with (will be incorporating some of your traditions too!)

aneri_masi said...

@megha, that sounds sweet too. Will definitely be somewhere on my list! Thanks!

@ceedy, chopda pujan, aha!

aneri_masi said...

@my space, I am all for buying jewelery :) And absolutely LOVE your idea of painting the diyas. Please do put up pictures of your ones from this year.

Kanan said...

Aww I'd typed up a long answer and that's when blogger ate it :( I'll type it up later on again.