Hello hello! How are you doing today? I had a productive day, striking off most of my tasks for the day. Today I am here to talk about all the festivities 🎉.

The temperatures dropped to 0ºC this morning. Oh yes, it has started to get cold in here! Cold enough for me to be wearing those hand and toe warmers underneath all those layers! If not for Ginger, I would never step out of the house on a morning like this one. It was freezing out there.

The month of September and October was all about celebrations. It started with Ganesh Chaturthi followed by Dussehra, Diwali, Karva chauth (not festival, more of a tradition), Dias de los Muertos (at school) and then finally Halloween. Usually I dedicate a post each to every celebration. This time I am going to cover everything in just a single post! So let’s begin.

Ganesh Chaturthi

Ganesh Chaturthi is a big festival for us, it’s bigger than Diwali for me. As years have passed, with most of us staying out of country and parents growing older, the tone of the celebrations back home has mellowed down . Despite that, this festival stands first in list of my favorite festivals.

This festival brings back beautiful memories of all my mom and dad’s siblings and my first cousins gathered under one roof, celebrating , eating and just being us! Everyone made that extra effort of taking leave from work to be in Belgaum for this one festival !

After the festivities were over, we would all head back to my Amma’s (maternal grandmother) house for more fun and masti.

When in Bangalore, I never missed celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi with family. Except for one year (which was beyond my control) , I have always travelled to Belgaum to be with family. Well ow I celebrate here in Seattle with my friends, a mini version of how it’s celebrated back home.

We celebrate it for just one day, going all out with the cleaning, rituals and preparing special food! I have been celebrating it the same way for last 6 years since I moved to Seattle.

The girls are now in synch with all the rituals. They most enjoy giving bath to all the Gani’s (that is what we call Ganesh’s at my home 😊) of our house. On this day specifically I prepare all our favorite delicacies from North Karnataka and this year was no different.

Later in the evening, my friends join us for evening prayers. They have become a part of this celebration! Their presence makes me miss home a little less on this festive day ! Even if it is for a few minutes, they make it a point to come over and celebrate with us ❤️.

Dussehra Festival

Married in to a North Indian family, I tried fasting for first 9 days (Navratri )of this grand festival. But that didn’t last long, now I just do the Ashtami pooja on the 8th day and on the tenth day of this festival, we celebrate Dussehra.

More than actual festival of Dussehra it is Dandiya Raas that excites me most about this festival!! Oh I have played so much Dandiya Raas while in college and few years after that! I absolutely enjoy this colorful, energetic dance from the state of Gujarat !!

This year I along with the girls went to nearby school on a Sunday night to groove on some Dandiya music! To my surprise for a late Sunday night event, the auditorium was jam packed! The Dandiya music was on spot and well, as for the company? I had three beautiful ladies along side me , what more could I ask for?

Diwali

You know I love Diwali! I have already covered so much about it my earlier posts! This year was no different, we did everything and bit more, because, it was our first Diwali in our new home.

I brought some really cute decorations online from ShagunArtsandCrafts this festival, including that OM rangoli. Over the years I have come to the hard realization that I and my girls suck at rangoli😂. ShagunArtsandCrafts came to our rescue!

And of course for indoors we had mandala rangoli puzzle from KultureKhazan! A find from last year that I absolutely adore.

S joined us on Diwali day (all tired, tanned and down with a rather bad cold) after catching up on his Formula one race. He made it just in time to celebrate with us 🎉❤️. Celebrations started with friends a week before Diwali and ended a week after Diwali.

I volunteered in first in person Diwali celebrations at N’s class along with another parent volunteer. Omg this was the cutest bit of all our Diwali celebrations❤️.

I had the most fun two hours at her class, as we narrated the Diwali story, did a bit of Diwali craft and shared some Indian sweets!

Diwali this year was all love and lights just like it should be!

Halloween

Unlike our Halloween celebrations of last year where we carved and painted our pumpkins a week before , Halloween this year was rather slow for us! We carved and painted our pumpkins just a day before! Diwali celebrations had zapped out of all my energy.

If not for N, who was enthusiastic about carving I wouldn’t have even bothered with any of it ! She owned it all of up from cleaning to carving to painting, she did all by herself with very little help from me. I must add that this year she did all this at school too, and just that gave her enough confidence to do it all by herself at home!

This year my friend Satya threw a Halloween party for the kids! Yes, finally I opted out from having one at my place. I just didn’t have the patience or the will to do it! Like all her parties, she had tons of brain teasing puzzles and game for ready for the kids as you can tell from the pics.!

We got dressed up as Witch, Ninja and a Fox and went trick a treating on a cold cold Halloween school night! And if that wasn’t enough, once back home we went for trick or treating in our neighborhood too 🤐.

And finally with this I am done catching up on all the festivals and could-have-been-many posts from this year. This is one of my fastest post I have managed to write under few hours. The promise to show up in this space pushed me to complete a post.

Whatever little you can do for yourself do it . It’s the small incremental wins that make a difference. Always remember that ❤️.

“There is no finish line, only the next goal.” — Alex Toussaint