Monday, December 08, 2008

Eid Mubarak!

It's 20 below today in Montreal, for the first day of Eid Ul-Adha (makes me think of a Christmas song that starts with "Oh the weather outside is frightful...").
On this Eid, my sisters are
a) here with me in Montreal enduring the same temperatures,
b) in sunny California with my parents, or
c) in Egypt, praying the congregational Eid prayer in an outdoor field along with most of her husband's family's town.

We've been on an email streak for a couple of days, the entire family (4 sisters, 4 brothers by marriage, 2 parents), starting with discussion of funny things my little Angela's done recently and into "Happy Eid" exchanges, and what everyone will be doing. The Montreal crew? We'll be gorging on chocolate... (There's this place we've been meaning to try forever, and we figured a huge celebratory day is as good a time as any. I have book buying plans too, thanks to a bunch of recent exchanges with my favourite bookworm buddy about good reads - Glass Castle, March, here I come).

This year, I've truly been feeling the "internationalness" of the family. Everyone is everywhere, and yet with the Internet and phones and texting and VoIP being what they are today, I feel like we're all in the same place. I'm loving the stories from overseas and down-under (as we jokingly refer to Cali), and I'm loving being able to hear them so frequently.

Eid Mubarak to everyone, wherever you might be!

4 comments:

Jen said...

I relate to this post very much!! I just wish my own personal internationalness was somewhere WARMER. Have a great day today. :-)

noha said...

You too! Eid Mubarak... Yeah, we're definitely the coldest of the locations in my family. We were walking outside after the prayer and it was seriously BRUTAL. The -20 was BEFORE the windchill factor

VioletSky said...

Eid Mubarak to you - I was thinking of you when I realize it was your holiday time for you.

Right, that didn't come out as well as I'd wanted, but I hope you know what I mean. The point is I thought of you.

Enjoy the chocolate. Montreal in winter sounds like a version of hell to me, I visited once in February...

noha said...

Thanks VS. I totally understand what you mean. Very sweet thoughts... Yes, Montreal weather is *spectacular* at this time of year, but having lived in Ottawa my whole life, I'm used to it. They're essentially the same impossibly-cold temperatures.
Countdown to the chocolate continues. I now have my books. All is well in Noha-land :)