Make Eid Ul Adha Special For You and Your Family
For Muslims there come two Eids in a year where they celebrate happiness and greet eac other with joy. These two Eids are Eid-ul-Adha and Eid-ul-Fitr. The latter enjoys greater celebrations as it comes after a month of fasting, whereas the latter is renowned by the sacrifice of animal that takes place on the Eid days.
Eid-ul-Adha is just round the corner and Muslims have already bought animals for sacrifice. The point to consider in this regard is that Eid-ul-Adha is much more than just simple slaughtering of an animal and greeting each other with a hug after the Eid congregational prayer. With a few alterations in the mindset and the way one goes about Eid-ul-Adha, one can really make it special and make it a memorable event instead of just exchange of gifts and eating.
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The lines below give some tips that can help a Muslim in making the festival of Eid special for him or herself and for the family as well.
Prior Planning:
The first thing that can make the event of Eid special is the prior planning. A Muslim gets to know the day of Eid-ul-Adha ten days before its arrival, therefore, it provides ample time to a Muslim about what he or she can do on that day. You can easily schedule the outing you are going to have, the family or outside dinner that you want have on that day. Moreover, prior planning also helps in avoiding any kind of frantic situation that might occur because of the arrival of guests and lack of preparation on the Eid day. Thus, by proper planning of the Eid days one can easily incorporate the elements of choice into the celebrations to make the event special and memorable.
Home Décor:
There is no denying the fact that the celebration of Eid is more of an intrinsic factor where if a Muslim is happy from the inside, he or she is able to celebrate the Eid in the true spirit, however, the celebration of Eid is an act and like any act it requires demonstration. Other than wearing new clothes and hugging people, you must also pay attention to your house as well, and clean it and decorate it properly for the day of Eid. This way when guests come to your house you will be prepared and in a presentable condition making it a supplement to the celebrations. Therefore, try to decorate your house in appropriateness with the festivities of Eid-ul-Adha.
Special Foods:
Although Eid-ul-Fitr is the Eid primarily known for cooking of different kinds of foods, as its arrival marks the end of Ramadan during which Muslims fast for the whole month, however, on Eid-ul-Adha, there is all sorts of meat available to the Muslims. There is beef, there mutton and there is camel meat as well, all of which can be utilized on the Eid days to make special foods. In this regard the best thing you can do is throw a barbeque party in your lawn and have members of the family get together and make the occasion a cherished memory.
Distribution of Meat:
Islam tells us to make three parts of the meat that comes from the sacrifice, one is to be distributed among the poor so that they could also get something good to eat, the second is to be distributed among the relatives so that those who have not sacrificed could have meat to eat and the relation between the families could strengthen, and the third part of the meat is to be kept in the home for the use in home.
The best thing to do to make this meat categorization and consequent distribution more special and memorable is to involve children in the process. Children take interest in giving meat to others in the same way they take interest in exchange of gifts on Eid-ul-Fitr. In addition to keeping the children interested, it also teaches them the spirit behind Eid-ul-Fitr as well.
Buying New Clothes:
Eid is as happy as a Muslim festival can get, therefore, compared to all other occasions, it is the best time for wearing new clothes. The wearing of new clothes in addition to giving a special feeling, also represent the fact that a Muslim is caring enough to buy new cloths specific to this event. As head of the family, the male or female both should try to buy new clothes for all the family members so that on the special day they are wearing clothes that are specially bought for the day.
Invite The Lonely Ones Over:
Not all have the blessing of family and friends. There are people in this world who celebrate the occasions of joy and celebration alone. Eid is the day when a Muslim should specially consider all such people around and try inviting them home for a dinner. This way the lonely people also get to celebrate the joys of Eid and it also helps bring people close to each other as well. Therefore, in addition to inviting adults, the head of family must also encourage their children to bring other children home who share the same situation of loneliness as the less fortunate adults so that they also get to know about the Islamic spirit of caring for the less fortunate ones.
Visit Other People:
It was the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that on the day of Eid He would take one route to the mosque and come back from the other route. This shows that Prophet (PBUH) wanted to greet as much people as possible on his way to and back from the mosque. Therefore, on the day of Eid a Muslim must also make time in which he or she goes to meet other relatives and friends and extend to them Eid celebrations. In the busy life of today, the event of Eid should be utilized to mend the old ties and bring closer to each other making Eid special for everyone.
Conclusion:
In a nutshell, Eid-ul-Adha is once in a year and like Eid-ul-Fitr it should also be considered an occasion of spreading joy and happiness. Therefore, beyond the conventional activities of sacrificing an animal and distributing the meat, a Muslim head of family should try and take special measures to ensure that Eid-ul-Adha is special in every regard and a cherished memory.
