Tis' the season to be jolly

The past few weeks have been full of festivities. It has been hard to find many signs of Christmas or New Year, but I've been participating in some Iranian ones.

First we celebrated Shab-e Yalda on the longest night of the year, December 21^st. It is an old Zoroastrian hoiliday and we are supposed to read the poetry of Hafez and eat 40 things… nuts, melon, fruit etc. I think we managed the eating, but there was no poetry. My threshold for Iranian poems is quite low, so not sure I really missed it, but I am working on it. Think sometimes the meaning is lost in translation, so perhaps as my Farsi improves my interest in poetry will also increase? The most wonderful thing happened on Shabe Yalda though.. it snowed .I'm often told how great the weather is in Iran- perfect 4 seasons (obviously incomparable with rainy and grey England), and I saw so with my own eyes. Ever since then the weather has been cold but bright, and from different spots around town you can see the snow on the mountains. The rest of the country has been experiencing the worst weather for 40 odd years, with Tehran coming to a standstill and people freezing to death. So far the proper snow hasn't hit Isfahan, but I am assured it is coming.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Since Shab-e Yalda it has been Eid something or other and then Eid Ghadir. I haven't done anything for these holidays except had a day off work, so keep them coming please. I don't really know what they were about either, and should probably find out, especially as I am in Iran as and Iranian and therefore a Muslim, so maybe I should try and learn a bit more about the religion? The problem is that as these holidays are essentially religious and absolutely no one around me is , it is hard to be informed.

It's felt very odd being in a country with no Christmas or New Year's celebrations what-so-ever. I have seen some Christmas trees in big hotels, and shops selling decorations around the Armenian area I live in, but not much else. It has made me a little homesick... if only I could walk into a shop playing a cheesy Christmas song by a rubbish band, or into a pretend Christmas market and sip mulled wine. A weird desire to have a nose in the church on Christmas beset me. But alas, there was no ice skating rink in the courtyard, and no jingle bells blaring out (I don't really think that is what happens in English churches at Christmas, but that is what I was missing!). I realized if I wanted Christmas I'd have to make it myself, but first there was the new year to celebrate.

Baba Noel

I couldn't go through the year without somehow marking the New Year, so I arranged a party for all my cousins at another cousin's house. I cooked enough pasta to make strega nonna jealous, decorated the flat with lots of tinsel, and then we danced, dance, danced. Everyone agreed we could dance to my khareji ( foreign) music, but when I put it on only one person was willing so it was quickly changed. I'll get 'em next time! My cousins bought some disco lights- strobes and everything, and we even got our hands on some booze, throw in some E's and we've got a rave, especially as I guess by Iranian law, it was completely illegal. We also ate a big home made cake, which took the edge of I guess, and everyone bought me presents too. It took me completely by surprise and I was very touched, although I kept saying that in my culture we don't by presents for New Years. Not that I am complaining, I was missing Christmas wasn't I?

Ravin!

After New Year came Christmas, we were working to the Orthodox calendar I suppose. My dad and I decided to cook a proper Christmas dinner for everyone. Debates raged for a week about how to cook the turkey, one Ameh suggesting we needed to boil it first, I insisted that we just had to stick it in the oven but no one wanted to listen. It then took awhile to convince people that it would still be a meal without rice and that yes, the potatoes and stuffing would fill us up. We found the biggest turkey possible (we had 25 mouths to feed), and trips to various green grocers proved that both overpriced parsnips and brussel sprouts are available. In a pork free country we couldn't find any replacement for pigs in blankets, but got sour cherry jam instead of cranberry sauce, and made the best homemade stuffing (which we never bother doing in UK). For dessert we had a carefully smuggled Christmas pudding, stewed apples and custard. Sadly no brandy, so we couldn't set the pudding alight, and I think its magic was lost on everyone. All in all everything went down a treat and was great to be able to invite everyone over instead of always being a guest.

I've never seen a potato...

.. or turkey this BIG before

Turkey with all the trimmings

The holiday season continues, as Moharram is just around the corner. The roads have been decorated with black and green flags and any day now men and women will take to the streets. The holiday is mainly celebrated by crying a lot for the martyred Imam Hossein and partaking in self flagellation (Is that the right word? The one that means hitting yourself, NOT farting). I guess it is like national group therapy, maybe as cathartic as carnival, just in a very different way….