Yalda night

Hi there, it’s my first essay in this blog. I hope that you enjoy reading it. You know that there are various traditions, celebrations and festivals in Iran, but since during last night and this morning, the weather was snowing it reminds me “Yalda night”.So now, I want to write about this old tradition in the Iranian culture. It’s an annual tradition on the first day of the winter season. The origin of this tradition goes back to many years ago in ancient Iran. When it was so boring for Iranian people to spend long and dark nights of the winter alone, so they went to each other’s homes and tried to have good time with each other and among these nights, the first night of winter that is the winter solstice, was so popular. Why? I don’t know exactly, perhaps in this way, they told each other to get ready for night parties in the winter. During those days, people had a good store of food for the winter and among such as dried fruits and nuts which were eaten during those nights especially in the first day but there were some fresh fruits like pomegranate, too. They could just eat seasonal fruits and vegetables.This tradition has passed from generation to generation until we receive it and many customs, like reading Hafez poems, playing “Setar” and eating nuts, fruits and some special food, still remain. Perhaps you think there is no reason is no reason for keeping this tradition because there is a wide variety of entertainment to choose from, but some traditions linger on long after they’ve lost their meanings and reasons.