Halloween and other occasions

[Enigmatic]

So over the past weekend, on an Eid get together, I met a couple of desi families and the discussion went on to halloween, christmas etc. A couple of people were firmly against the idea of even letting the kids dress up and have fun. When I asked them their reasons, I got varied responses

**‘it’s a pagan festival (regarding Halloween). If the whole concept is wrong why let the kids celebrate’

‘aaj kul log Eid se zyada to ye sab manatay hain..bache as a result kehte hain hum Eid pe sotay hain sara din..bara boring hota hai’

‘yea abi you are letting them celebrate Halloween and Christmas, would you allow them to celebrate Valentine’s Day as well when they grow up or start dating, go to prom and after parties. where do you draw the line’

‘I don’t see anything wrong in it. if you are living in their country, you better well accept the cultural things and occasions too. we dont want our kids growing up as weird outcasts’**

So what do you think? Do you celebrate these occasions , days etc or not? If you do, how do you draw the line. Can kids learn to differentiate on the individual importance of Ramadan, Eids in comparison with Halloween, Christmas, Holi, Diwali etc?

[KKF]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

Live like Romans live in Rome but within the confines of our religion. let then enjoy little things which they do NOT celebrate with religious intent. i think there is NO harm in allowing kids to be part of the local cultural events as long as we tell them about our own religion and encourage them to practice it from the very beginning of their childhood.

[hareem01]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

I wouldn’t mind carving a pumpkin just for fun’s sake but dressing up my kids in gory costumes and sending them to beg for sweets is just stupid. Btw, my kids do have superheroes and animal costumes and they don’t need a specific day to wear them.

[polished_gems]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

^lol, beg for sweets, what a perspective! I think halloween is okay its just a commercial holiday now more than a religious one…I’m actually nervous of the idea of trick or treating because I’ve been traumatized as a young kid, the day after halloween my dad read this news story of someone in our city handing out candy that had been tampered with, and a couple of kids fainted after they ate it…I threw away all my candy that year to be safe.

[Southie]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

I don’t understand last sentence - can kids differentiate on the individual importance od Ramadan Eid compared to Christmas Holi Diwali?

Why? Each is a religious festival/ occasion. Each is important.

[Niksik]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

Enigmatic, I was planning to start a thread on this topic in the morning but good you did. I’ve been receiving a ton of mail from people who like to call Halloween and other such festivals HARAM. I don’t think kids dressing up in fun costumes and collecting candy is haram. It’s just a fun evening.

It’s the lazy and stingy parents who don’t want to do anything fun with their children who make claims such as those.

[Reha]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

I am totally okay with the fun part of it. I have no issues with the kids dressing up, trick or treating (of course, eating that candy is a different story) and just making a cute evening out of it.

But lately, I don’t know. I am suddenly turned off from the whole thing.

[Chicken_Biryani]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

I have grown up in the Middle East and in the UK and never have I seen gora’s trying to copy our rituals or trying to be like us, even in the middle east.
Its only us desi’s who love to act like gora’s most of the time. And thats what we teach our kids too unfortunately.

Majority festivities that people celebrate are rooted in a religion, Islam, Jewism, Christianity, hinduism.
hindu’s celebrate their festivals with so much zeal that their festivities become eye catching and awe inspiring , the same goes with the Christian events ..
Unfortunately muslims dont really enjoy festivities the way they should , coz they are too busy planning Christmas and thanksgiving parties !

Having said that, because we live in multicultural environment, I feel its needed to gel in slightly with the rest of the cultures to show them respect ..
for that one can enjoy some elements of a festival , for example christmas time , sales go on, instead of focusing on the christmas tree , muslim kids can be focused on shopping element , the lighting element etc etc … Haloween time, they can dress up but I am against this whole idea of going out asking for candies .. Like Hareem said, fun can be created any day with fancy dresses , why specifically Haloween?

Growing up in the UK, my grandfather never used to celebrate any of this stuff at home and I have turned out to be a balanced person, I havnt lost out on anything ! My Christian friends would celebrate Xmas , I didnt .. I just wished them well but never tried to become part of them. similarly , dadajee would ask me to share sweets with my friends over Eid time , they enjoyed the sweets wished me well and never tried becoming a part of my festivity ..

Alhumdullillah , I know alot of British muslim families of desi origin who dont celebrate any events other then Islamic and mashallah their kids are fine and healthy too ..

So really its down to the parents , how strongly they feel for their own Islamic festivities. And wether they choose to ignore the roots of the festivities they are celebrating.

[hareem01]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

@Niksik

Enigmatic, I was planning to start a thread on this topic in the morning but good you did. I’ve been receiving a ton of mail from people who like to call Halloween and other such festivals HARAM. I don’t think kids dressing up in fun costumes and collecting candy is haram. It’s just a fun evening.

It’s the lazy and stingy parents who don’t want to do anything fun with their children who make claims such as those.

not trying to be religouso but isnt it true that it does have pagan and Christian origins?

[Enigmatic]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

@Southie

I don’t understand last sentence - can kids differentiate on the individual importance od Ramadan Eid compared to Christmas Holi Diwali?

Why? Each is a religious festival/ occasion. Each is important.

I agree, each religious occasion is important to people of that faith. And when I say differentiating, I mean that a Muslim kid should know that according to Islam, Eids are a lot more important and a part of their religion and Halloween and other occasions cannot be equated to them on the whole. Am sure Christian kids would never bother celebrating Eid and would never think that Eid is more of an occasion to celebrate than Christmas, same for a Hindu kid for whom Diwali and Holi should obviously be more important.

The reason i opened this thread was, because I met one or two families who didnt do anything for Eid this time, no dressing up or even visiting anyone and last night I saw all their kids dressed up totally excited for Halloween. Not very tasteful IMO.

[kakee]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

Just the other day I saw pictures uploaded on facebook with people who were white dressed up in desi clothes for some party. There wasn’t a desi in sight All white!

and come on
there are women who wear saris and cook desi food (my mom being one of them) etc etc and are not desi.
I’m sure there are many foreigners in India/Pakistan who celebrate Eid/Diwali. Besides nowadays most events that were religious a long time ago are no longer celebrated for what it was.
Halloween used to be a ritual to celebrate the deceased but now thats all forgotten.

[Khumar]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

@Enigmatic

So over the past weekend, on an Eid get together, I met a couple of desi families and the discussion went on to halloween, christmas etc. A couple of people were firmly against the idea of even letting the kids dress up and have fun. When I asked them their reasons, I got varied responses

**‘aaj kul log Eid se zyada to ye sab manatay hain..bache as a result kehte hain hum Eid pe sotay hain sara din..bara boring hota hai’

**

And whose fault is that? It’s the parents’ fault for not making eid a big deal for their kids. Yes I understand that the eids that they had as children in Pakistan or India were a lot more fun and in non-muslim countries you don’t get holidays for Eid. but that is a lame excuse for not teaching the children about the importance of eid, the history of eid etc. and then they complain that hamaray bachay sleep on eid i’ve seen parents put some effort for their children about eid and as a consequence these children actually get excited about that day. it’s easy to whine but so much more difficult to actually do something. contrast this with how much there is a hoopla over valentine’s day, christmas, halloween, easter, thanksgiving etc. do we really expect our children to walk around blind when they are bombarded with these events in schools, tv, malls etc?

fyi, i loooooove halloween and christmas. couldn’t go trick or treating because i was too old (boo =( ) but these two are just so fun holidays. last year i made paper snowflakes and hung them up in my room. this year i’m not too sure what i’m going to do. i did do my nails for halloween though!

@Niksik

Enigmatic, I was planning to start a thread on this topic in the morning but good you did. I’ve been receiving a ton of mail from people who like to call Halloween and other such festivals HARAM. I don’t think kids dressing up in fun costumes and collecting candy is haram. It’s just a fun evening.

It’s the lazy and stingy parents who don’t want to do anything fun with their children who make claims such as those.

yeah the ones that turn of their lights and stay in the basement and pretend they’re not home :halo:

[Shak]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

Itni lambi post ^

[Khumar]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

@Shak09

Itni lambi post ^

[Shak]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

Chup karo

[Khumar]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

@Shak09

Chup karo

[hareem01]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

I agree with CB and Khumar.

[Shak]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

@Khumar

chup karo

[Enigmatic]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

Agree with khumar too…

[Muzna]

Re: Halloween and other occasions

@Chicken_Biryani

I have grown up in the Middle East and in the UK and never have I seen gora’s trying to copy our rituals or trying to be like us, even in the middle east.
Its only us desi’s who love to act like gora’s most of the time. And thats what we teach our kids too unfortunately.

I grew up in Canada…might as well have been born here.
I’ve seen many non-desi people appreciate our culture and traditions. The folks in my office never miss an opportunity to recognize Eid and say “Eid Mubarak” to me.

Of course they are not going to start celebrating Eid like we do because we are still in a minority here. Our holiday is not a public holiday nor is it a commercially charged event for them. So I don’t expect them to “adopt” Eid.

@Chicken_Biryani

Majority festivities that people celebrate are rooted in a religion, Islam, Jewism, Christianity, hinduism.
hindu’s celebrate their festivals with so much zeal that their festivities become eye catching and awe inspiring , the same goes with the Christian events ..
Unfortunately muslims dont really enjoy festivities the way they should , coz they are too busy planning Christmas and thanksgiving parties !

I disagree.
We do celebrate but we do it in our homes and our tight knit social circles. It is only now we are coming together as a group and organizing melas and Eid festivals on a large scale.
When I was younger we used to have Eid Milan parties…either they were held in private homes or if we really managed to get a lot of people involved then we rented banquet facilities and even had music parties. (We’re actually going to one such event tomorrow night.)
We never missed celebrating any of our events because we were too busy with Halloween or Christmas.

@Chicken_Biryani

Growing up in the UK, my grandfather never used to celebrate any of this stuff at home and I have turned out to be a balanced person, I havnt lost out on anything ! My Christian friends would celebrate Xmas , I didnt .. I just wished them well but never tried to become part of them. similarly , dadajee would ask me to share sweets with my friends over Eid time , they enjoyed the sweets wished me well and never tried becoming a part of my festivity ..

Growing up in Canada, my family always celebrated all of this stuff at home and I have turned out to be a balanced person, I havnt lost out on anything ! My Christian friends would celebrate Xmas , I celebrated with them .. I wished them well and exchanged gifts with them but never tried to become part of them. similarly , ammi and papa would ask me to share sweets with my friends over Eid time , they enjoyed the sweets wished me well, joined our festivities and some even were interested enough to try and learn about Islam… Some in our social circle actually converted Ah! ..

@Chicken_Biryani

**So really its down to the parents **, how strongly they feel for their own Islamic festivities. And wether they choose to ignore the roots of the festivities they are celebrating.

Really that’s what it comes down to.

Since becoming a parent I have decided that I would rather expose/teach my child about everything and ensure that she has a strong foundation at home to fall back on. That way, with all knowledge at her disposal, she will make an informed decision about her choices in life iA.