Ridvan

The festival figures are up, all the vases are filled with flowers, both real and not so real. I really prefer the fresh flowers but because if feels so festive to have flowers everywhere and we do this for various Holy Days throughout the year, the fake ones are somewhat essential. For years the kids would get to choose a flower for each Baha'i holy day. We have, at this stage, amassed quite a collection and no longer buy them for the Holy Days, instead we just display them. The girls were responsible for sorting out the flowers and placing the festival figures around the house this year. I got most of these from a UNICEF basement in the city years ago and have found other sets through the Education Department's multicultural resources. We had some when I was a child and I love continuing this tradition with the kids.

Years ago Martha gave us a small tent (igloo) from IKEA and warned me that they were extremely challenging to pack away. Extremely. I hesitated to bring it out for a very long time. I can only plead post traumatic stress here as we used to have a "pop up play tent" that only Steve Irwin and his entire team of highly trained, extremely toned, crocodile hunters could have wrestled into submission. The thing used to drive me nuts trying to store it away - the minute you thought you had it right where you wanted it well, the whole thing would inevitably blast open and you'd be back to square one. Anyway, its Ridvan. It has been wet and cool and there was no way we could do our gazebo thingy outdoors. We needed a tent. This turned out to be perfect. (Thanks Martha!) We put a Persian cloth on the floor and draped Indian silk over the top. And voila: the perfect place share prayers and read Ridvan stories.

The kids are loving it! I'll let you know how the pack up goes - unless I'm therapy...