Celebrating Aidilfitri - My Family's Way

This post is long overdue since Aidilfitri was celebrated on 1st Syawal which fell on 1st October 2008. Nevertheless the need to share with you all how we celebrated Aidilfitri within our family. Many non Moslems would want to know how we do it as most people would only envision us feasting on all the good food served during the celebration.
Personally I would consider the celebration to have begun on Hari Membuat Ketupat (Ketupat Making Day) which is a day before. In our case it was on Tuesday 30th September 2008. It was really fun teaching the children how to do this traditional delicacy.

Even Balqis helped in by keeping us entertained while making the ketupat.
Since this was the last day of fasting, the nightly Terawih prayers ceased and tonight we did the Takbir (recital of praises to Allah) after the Isyak prayers.
First Day
The morning of the Raya started with the Subuh prayers. Upon returning home we took our bath and prepared for the Idulfitri prayers which will be done at 8.30 AM at our small surau. I prefer to do it at the small surau because I know most of the people in the congregations since they are mostly my neighbours. I could have gone to the mosque with an even bigger congregation but only very few of them will be known to me.
One thing that never failed to amaze me, more people will come out to pray for this prayer which is a sunat (one will be rewarded with pahala if one were to do it) even though they didn't do the five daily prayers which is a wajib (one will be penalised if one even misses it).

Here we are on our way to the surau. Azini has to look after Balqis so she couldn't make it while Lokman chose to go to the mosque.

When we reached the surau, they were already doing the Takbir and so we just joined them. The ladies were segregated and prayed in the back section of the congregation.

When the prayers were done, which is actually a short one and led by Ustaz Zawawi Zakaria, a graduate from Azhar University of Egypt. He later delivered the sermons. The sermon is an important part of the prayers. The Imam exhort us through it to be good muslims. Since it was a prepared text from Majlis Ugama Islam Kelantan, it didn't miss taking a swipe at the Federal Government over it's policy on youth development. Even the Jom Heboh and Akademi Fantasia on TV was mentioned as a form of bad influence. Well it is up to us individually to digest the sermon.

The best part of a Raya prayers is when we salam with each and every individual congregation who were present. It is the opportunity to reestablish broken ties among us.

Immediately after the Raya prayers we headed directly to one of the neighbour's place. We have to do it early otherwise we would miss it again for the umpteenth time.
We returned home and now it was our turn to ask for forgiveness among the family. Well of course we had to start the ball rolling. The children followed.



The family photograph was taken. Since only son Azuan and daughter Azini came home with their spouses, it wasn't really a big family.


We waited for our relatives from Kota Bharu to come to the house before we moved on to visit my mother inlaw and the rest of the siblings in the vicinty of the motehrs place. Since both of my parents have passed away, it was less hectic as we didn't have to travel a long distance on the first day of Raya.
The family of my sister inlaw from Kota Bharu came quite early.

This is the first arrival. Mohd Quoyum aspires to be a Mufti. He had manage to commit to memory the Surrah Yasin while still at a young age. By now he has added a few more surrah.
They were the first to sample our servings.
My house was at a dead end road, so parking was quite a problem.

We moved on to my mother in law's place.

Azuan paying respect to the maternal grandmother.

Fatthiyah's cousin is married to a Syrian who teaches Arabic at the International Islamic University Campus in Kelantan.
Haleeza reads my blogs and requested that I put her picture in it.

We went next door to the siter's place.

This is Siti (in red) with Ijjah and Yaya. Siti is a big biker and recently traded off her Honda CBR 600 to upgrade to a bigger CBR 1000. What can you say when someone loves the big bike so much.

The family photograph. Yours truly is behind the camera.

Then off we go to the brother in law's place for yummy mee curry.

The uncle's place was the last place in the vicinity of the mother in law's place before we proceeded to the house of Lokman's parent. Here is one picture for the album.

By the time we reached my sister's place (below), there wasn't anymore room in our stomach for another bite.

The visit to Ijjah's parents house was a mere courtesy call. There is no way for us to eat anything.

My daughter in law's parents was the last place to visit for the day before we head home for some rest.

Second Day

The second day of Raya we played host for the reciprocal visits from my other half's siblings. They stopped by on their way to visit the eldest sister in Kota Bharu.

We followed them to Kota Bharu. On the return trek, we wanted to proceed to Tanah Merah where my half brother resides. We had to call off the idea as the jam towards Tanah Merah started building up from across the river on the other side of Pasir Mas.

That night we played host to my son's parent in law's family who came visiting. My sister's family came too.

The Third Day

The third day of Raya was spent attending Datuk Sukimi's open house in Wakaf Baru.

Datuk Sukimi posing with one of his guests, The Kelantan Chief Director of Education. Datuk Sukimi's open house was the place to feast as you have ample choice to choose from with the different food stations.

My son Azuan and his mum being showed how to enjoy Mee Hongkong with the help of his mum's cousin Wani.

We left Datuk Sukimi's place to visit Lokman's sisters place who was having an open house in her new house. A heavy downpour washed away an otherwise great day.

Fourth Day.

I had set up a mini gathering of Kelantan bloggers at Hayaki Kopitiam in Desa Cemerlang. It was the miniest of mini gathering when only Che Jaafar Che Musa was the other blogger that turned up. Another blogger Raktamrittika wanted to attend but he got stuck in the jam and reached Hayaki at 12.00 noon after we were long gone. I could have stayed on till noon if my daughter had not borrowed my laptop for her class in Keningau.

Che Jaafar aka cjcm of KL Traveller in front of Hayaki Kopitiam. This outlet has expanded with another shop being opened up on the side where we stood.

Fifth Day

I received a call from a blogger who wanted to visit my place. It was a nice surprise indeed to receive Aida Rahim aka pb with her husband and family.

Pb and her family. Thank you for visiting me.

So my friends, that is about it. I wont bore you to death with the minute details.