Hello and happy new year to all my global friends.
Connect prepared a good platform for sharing the similarities of our cultures and these days is a good sample of it. Celebrating the new year by many of you and the suggestion of @Velvel forced me to put time and write some Christmas stories of Persia. Although it is too late, I tried one time and all my drafts destroyed and in the past days, I was too busy to put time again but finally, I did and I like to share it with you.
Here in Iran, our main ceremony and the start of the year is Nouwruz and although we’re familiar with the Gregorian Calendar and the Lunar Calendar our main calendar is the Persian Calendar (Iranian Calendar) which is based on the astronomical position of the Earth around the sun and our Persian year starts at the Spring Equinox.
But also since ancient times, Iranian celebrate some other days of the year again because of the astronomical events. One of the most famous ones is Yalda Night which happens on the night of Winter Solstice and we pass the longest night of the year to reach the light. One main customs of Yalda Night is using red color and eating the pomegranate and nuts with reading “Hafez” the book.
These are very similar traditions to the Christmas ones like the clothes of Santa Claus, or for example, some traditions by using pomegranate in some countries during Christmas.
But besides contacting the cultures with each other during the ages, another important thing that is really impressive for me about these similarities is the story of the Three Magi; Three wise men who saw the Star of Bethlehem and traveled from the east to meet Jesus after his birth and give him gifts. The phrase “from the east” in fact based on the resources, refers to the Parthian Empire in Persia. By putting these signs together we see that Christmas isn’t so far at all from the Persian culture and we have lots of things to celebrate these days together.
These days by social media and in the global village we even have more chances to share our cultures and Iranian are really happy when Christmas and the World’s new year (or more accurate Gregorian new year) arrive. While most Iranians are Muslims, many Iranians are Christians and it brings this chance to us to celebrate Christmas even in some streets and some public places with each other like other countries.
For example, some stores sell Yalda Night and Christmas goods and some streets are very beautiful these days. Also, some areas like Jolfa in Isfahan are full of Christmas atmosphere. Although this year no great ceremony held because of the Covid-19 we’re all hopeful to the future to celebrate all good things together.
- Photos of Isfahan are by my friend @payman61 , a member of the Iran Local Guides community, with his permission.
#LGChristmasChallenge2020
