The New Year and seeing relatives

Young journalists club

News ID: 3719
Iran » Iran
Publish Date: 12:33 - 22 March 2014
Tehran, YJC. The New Year in Iran comes with a host of observations. Seeing folks is one.

The Iranian New Year will start March 21 at the Vernal equinox. The following 12 days are called Nowruz, literally meaning "the new day”. Besides doing a lot in preparation for the Nowruz in cleaning the house and buying new clothes and furniture as well as arranging the special New Year table "Haft Seen” with a lot symbolically representing beliefs and a lot more just there to be eaten, Iranians pay visit to folks.

Families usually start their round of visits to near and far relatives by going to the elderly, usually the wife and husbands parents. Then they continue their tour, which extends through the 12 days of holiday, by seeing brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, etc., and in turn by staying home for others to come visit them.

The visit consists mainly of getting to know how everyone does, eating special things prepared for the occasion, ranging from fruits to nuts and to the ritual Samanu, and to the part which especially interests the young, which is giving presents. It is usually so that the host or the elder relative gives gifts of cash to the young. The cash is called "eedee”. Kids usually make a lot of these gifts which then they use to buy something they have long wanted to have, the financial independence giving them some freedom from the choices their parents make them in buying things.

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