My favorite tradition that I enjoyed celebrating in Afghanistan is the Eid. This celebration is very important for the Muslim people. Eid is a tradition which has been celebrated since the beginning of the 1400’s when Muhammad was on his way to his First Pilgrimage. Eid is the religious Festival of Sacrifice celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate two events. One is the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son, Isaac, as an act of obedience to God. The second event is the end of the Pilgrimage or Hajj of Mohammed. Abraham obeyed God a long time ago and religious people today make the Hajj every year when they go to Mecca, a sacred place in Saudi Arabia. Eid is important to the people of Afghanistan. It has religious meaning and Eid is a happy holiday. The three reasons that it is celebrated are to be with family, visit friends, and eat really good food. The first thing that is done when celebrating Eid is to spend time with family by going to the Mosque around 8 am to 10.30 am to pray. Everyone dresses in new clothes that were bought for the holiday. After prayer, the family comes home to make tea and cookies to eat. While baking the cookies slow music is played to listen to. Then 30 minutes later fast Afghan music is played so the family can start dancing together to celebrate Eid. That’s my favorite part to dance with my family. We take a break then we start dancing again together. The other thing that is done for Eid is to go to the homes of friends to visit. When first entering the house, we say hello to each other. Then we paint Henna on our hands. This Henna has a red color and the design is like a flower, a picture of eyes, or other fun pictures. We only put Henna on our hand in a special event like Eid. The Henna symbolizes friendship and blessings for everyone. We then leave the house to go out to celebrate Eid with other families that we know. We play games together, eat ice cream, and go on rides together. There are different types of games for children and for adults. The games for the children are played on a local playground where there is a lot of room to play with each other. The adult games are flying kites, card games, and visiting. There are a lot of people outside playing games with family and friends during the afternoon of Eid, even the people that they don’t know. They play any sports game that they want. For example, football, throwing ball at each other, and also chasing each other. The last thing that everybody likes about Eid is the food. Every year in everyone’s family the best food is cooked. My mom cooks the best dishes for Eid so we can all eat really well. One of my favorite dishes is special rice that my mom cooks when Eid comes. In that rice, there are raisins, carrots, and also meat. My mom cooks that once a year and that’s my favorite food in this world. We also cook a lot of meat and give that to the poor people and the rich people. Also, we give poor people money so they can celebrate Eid with their family, as well. That is a tradition that we have to do every Eid. After all the food is cooked and the poor people given money, the family and friends meet in a large place to eat all the special and good food. Every year I wait for this moment to be with my family to celebrate Eid. Eid is one of the important things for everyone in Afghanistan because we spend time with the family to celebrate, we go to friend’s houses to celebrate, and also we eat a lot of really good food. Every year when Eid comes we get so happy to see everyone celebrating Eid. Celebrating Eid is one of the best things for all the people in Afghanistan. We always tell our family that we can’t wait until next year when we can celebrate Eid again.
