We have been celebrating like crazy over here! It is unusual for Ayyam'i'Ha to fall completely within the middle of the week, but that is just what happened this year. It means squeezing in all of our celebrating between getting home from school and going to bed, but we somehow manage. Imagine that.
One of the things about being a Baha'i is that there really aren't set traditions or any sort of ceremony attached to our holidays. In some ways this is quite challenging as it calls for a lot of creativity on our part. But mostly, it is very freeing as it means we can express our joy in whatever way we choose. So here is a partially documented round-up of what we did this year in our family:
We participated in a community-wide celebration. The children's class made gifts for everyone (origami boxes with special treats inside), sang songs, organized an "international" potluck, and performed a play for everyone.
The children took in (tons of) cookies to thank the teachers and staff at their school.
We also sent cookies to Grandma's co-workers and for Grandpa to pass out as a thank you to all of his nurses and care-givers.
We helped organize/participated in another children's class party that was based around acts of service and making gifts for them to give in that community.
We are going to do a big shop and donation of the most needed items for our local food bank. We haven't been able to do that yet, so we will this weekend.
All of these things took place in the wider community, and I sadly failed to photograph any of them.
However, we also did a lot of things at home, and I did a better job at documenting these things.
We put up our Ayyam'i'ha decorations and pocket board.
We had special foods: teas (with piles of cookies and pomegranates) and dinners(wild mushroom pasta and seafood dinner with crackers and takeout Chinese and pot roast) and cereal for breakfast (honey nut cheerios!) and treats in lunchboxes (pumpernickel bread! ha!).
This is our time for gift-giving, so of course there was lots of that as well. We do try to keep it fairly simple with one day reserved for gifts from family, one when the children give their gifts, one for books (which I ordered from the UK and arrived in a Royal Mail bag-- how fun is that?), and one for our gifts to the children.
It was very sweet to see the time, thought and effort the children spent on these gifts. The girls gave Asher lego in a cigar box with a plate glued to the top as a travel case, Asher (with a bit of help from me) gave them covered hot water bottles and hair pins, and Ana made me this stunning barn swallow print and stamp.
The children also went off to school this morning sporting new Harry Potter t-shirts. Hee hee.
We do try not to give the books until nearer to the end, though, as once they are opened everyone disappears:
(in the spirit of full disclosure, Simon is bent over a scratch map I gave him to record his travels on, not a book).
Everybody's favourite part, however, is working through the various tasks and clues we give them before they can get to their gifts. Here are some of the highlights from this year:
We put scrambled letters that spelled out the title of a song in practice golf balls. We then put the balls in an empty tissue box, tied it to a child, and they had to shake the balls out (no hands!). They had to figure out the song, whose lyrics gave them a clue as to the location of the next song title and so forth, until they eventually found their presents. For example, "i am the Walrus" led them to the egg carton in the fridge.
We suspended their clues from the ceiling fan using toilet paper (our living room ceiling is vaulted). They had to shoot them down with rubber bands.
They really wanted to do another round of going up against Daddy with a paper bag on his head. They had to neutralize him by sticking something in his back pocket without getting caught. Of course Asher ended up getting squashed, and it all ended in tears. But they still love doing it. Don't ask me...
They had to scale the living room wall in order to retrieve a clue. That was extremely entertaining to watch, I must confess.
Overall, I have to say we've had a pretty good go of it. It makes me so happy to see my children enjoying themselves so whole-heartedly. It can be difficult to be different, but they are happy and content to be who they are, and there is no greater gift than that.
Beautiiful gifts and lovely pictures. Pancakes for Findus is a well-loved classic in our house :-)
Posted by: sue at nobaddays | 01 March 2013 at 14:39
Beautiful pictures. It looks like so much fun! Have a great weekend!
Christina
Posted by: Christina | 02 March 2013 at 08:18
That's wonderful. Very sweet.
-- Cousin Sho
VEDDY IMPRESSIVE!
Posted by: Grampa2, Dad | 02 March 2013 at 15:30
Where did you order the Harry Potter T-shirts? My girls would love to have some. Many thanks! :o)
Posted by: Cathy | 02 March 2013 at 16:31
Please adopt me.
Posted by: John Woodall | 03 March 2013 at 06:22
such JOY in your home!
Posted by: Laura | 07 March 2013 at 17:51
Oh, how wonderful! Your kids are a bit older than mine (we have two girls and a youngest boy, too, but they're 12, 8, and 4) and this makes me so look forward to the future! What fun. :)
Posted by: Annie | 10 March 2013 at 19:41