Iranian New Year/Nowruz

For day 9 of the Student Blogging Challenge, we have to write a blog post about a holiday we celebrate. There is a holiday very special to me that not many people I know celebrate. That holiday is Iranian New Year or Nowruz (Which means “New Day”). Iranian New Year is celebrated in Iran (Obviously), Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Albania, Georgia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, parts of Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The Parliament of Canada passed a bill to add Nowruz to the national calendar.

Iranian Nowruz is a celebration that takes place over a 13 day period. During that time, there are 3 main holidays. Charshanbe-Suri (which means “Festive Wednesday”), Sizdah Bedar (Which means “Nature Day” or “Thirteenth Outdoor”) and Nowruz, which is the main celebration.

The first of these holidays is Charshanbe-Suri. Charshanbe-Suri takes place on the Wednesday before Nowruz. In my opinion, Charshanbe-Suri is the my favourite of the 3. The main event on Charshanbe-Suri is jumping over a bonfire for good luck. It sounds dangerous at first but is extremely fun. When I was 7 years old, I went to visit family members in Iran and to celebrate Nowruz. On Charshanbe-Suri, I was shocked at how big the event was. Back at home for Charshanbe-Suri, we would just make a small fire, keep it up for a half hour, and then we go eat dinner. In Iran there was probably 100 people, 10 bonfires and they were each 5 times higher than the fires I was used to. It was like a giant outdoor party in the middle of the night. The reason we jump over the fire is because we believe that bad spirits will fall into the fire and the more times you jump, the better luck you will have the next year.

The main celebration is Nowruz always takes place on the first day of spring. I think that Nowruz is like a combination of Christmas and New Years Eve. For example, we give each other small gifts and money, we eat traditional food and there is a countdown at midnight. (This is unrelated but if you have never had Iranian food, go get some now!)

The last event in Iranian New Year is Sizdah Bedar, which means “Thirteenth Outdoor.” It is also referred to as “Nature Day.” It is called these names because it takes place 13 days after Nowruz, usually on April 1st. On Sizdah Bedar, people go to the park with their families and have picnics. Last year, I went to a public Sizdah Bedar celebration. At the event, you probably would have to run 5 kilometres to escape the smell of Iranian food. Typical Iranian food eaten at Sizdah Bedar includes Beef Kebab, Barbecue Chicken and lots of rice.