I am happy this year to celebrate Hari Raya. Reason No.1 : it’s our first Aidilfitri together as one family. Reason No.2 : I don’t have to endure long hours of traveling as we will be celebrating it here…as per few years before this.
Somehow I don’t understand why people have to balik kampung every time there’s long weekend or public holiday. Maybe because they have family that love them and it makes sense for them to sacrifice their rest day, energy, effort and money to travel so far to meet their family at home.
Honestly, I don’t know how it feels because in my case, family always make me feel that I am obligated to meet their demands, that I am never good enough in anything I do and decisions in life that I choose to make are not what they want and expect of me.
Of course, deep down I wish that I have it differently, that I could celebrate Hari Raya happily with extended family, being surrounded with love, attention and good feelings. But I know that won’t happen, not even in the past 30 years of my life (not even when I was still single), maybe it was fun when I was a child but that was it..huh!
I pray that one day when my son is old enough, he will come home for Hari Raya not because he feels obligated but because he misses us and wants to spend the festive season as a family.
Emm..I could never imagine having Raya by not having my family around, I mean my extended family lah..anyway, Selamat Hari Raya to you!
It was hard at first, but come to think of it, dari sakit hati and have to endure it, might as well tak payah beraya with the extended family 🙂
Hi hon,
You do have family for raya – the hubby and kiddie – hopefully more in the future too.
We came over from Burma and we had just our own family for raya for many many years. My mom made it fun because we had so many family traditions to observe. Raya day was special eventho we could only call our grandparents (who could be as far away as Burma and America) to wish em.
Have lots of traditions – eg wrapping ketupat together/masak rendang/the salam and mintak maaf ceremony, handing out duit raya/playing with some safe bunga api (ade ke), sembahyang raya as a family etc. And raya becomes such an occasion to look forward to! 😀