Eid Mubarak to all of our Muslim brothers and sisters around the world!

How many of you still celebrate it by making Eid prayers in the mosque or visiting friends and families? We assumed most of you also spent this special day by staying at home, either alone or with little family, either eating regular foods just like any other day or having feast. Since Eid this year fell on in Saturday, Aisar didn’t need to take one day off from his office. In my parents home, my little sister finally made to go home and joined my little brother and his wife to accompany my mom after Indonesian government loosened the travelling ban, but in Aisar’s parents home, they celebrated Eid without any of their children T_T.

EID CARD

These are the greeting cards we made for Eid this year. Very special because we made many!

On May 19, I doodled a card with the cartoon of our family after impulsively installing Adobe Sketch on my iPhone. In the next day, Musa also created HIS FIRST EID CARD for his friend. That card was put on a postcard and sent via Japan post office as a part of “Eid Cards Exchange Program” from his qur’an circle (Called “TPA” in Indonesia, stands for Taman Pendidikan Alquran). So, he also got a cute Eid card from the friend he sent the card to. I was surprised to see all kids (and their moms of course) who participated in this program were super creative.

Card No. 2: Drawing by Musa for his friend AkiraAt Day-D, Aisar designed Eid card with our photo from Eid al -Adha last year to be printed and put inside the cake box we prepared for hampers (because we had not taken any new photo at that time.. haha). Later in the night, after we did photo session, he made another one using available template on Facebook as “official greeting card”. It’s so annoying when I saw some other friends also used the same template for their cards :))

(Update June 2020) More card was launched in the second day of Eid via my Instagram account to share our newest family photos. Indonesians say “sebagai formalitas” (as a norm / the custom people use to do it).

Which one is your favorite?

EID COSTUME

On this Eid, we put on exquisite clothes as we did every year in the past. When I got this set of family outfits from my dear cousin , I already planned it as costume to go to Eid prayer. With this  current situation, the plan was shifted into  family photo sesion.LOL

Eid Food

Fact: I didn’t cook at all for our meals on Eid day, which was an unusual condition :D. I used to cook the common menu for Lebaran every Eid, such as opor ayam (chicken white curry), ketupat (rice cake), sambal gorengn kentang (spicy potato dices), telur balado (spicy boiled egg), and rendang (beef stew). Ah ya, that’s Eid Al-Fitr! In Eid Al-Adha I usually cook lamb curry and roti jala (savory crepes). However, even though I didn’t cook, we still had the feast anyway.

Around the beginning of the last 10 days of Ramadan, I told Aisar to buy some ready-to-eat foods to reduce my kithen time. He agreed. Once I shared our intention to Ota and Neighborhood LINE group (the circle of Indonesians families living in Ota City, Tokyo / surrounding areas), the responses were very excited. Some members shared other store options and I just realized the fact that there are MANY small businesses handled by Indonesian housewives all over Japan. You might be overwhelmed when mentioning. From light traditional snack to a full-loaded nasi padang, we can afford at reasonable prices and proper packaging. Why not give them a try!!!

Finally, after collecting list from the members and placed the order, two big boxes, containing yummy Indonesian dishes from Masakan Mak Alli (Minang/Sumatra culinary) and mbak Ida Soebandi (she can cook anything :D) we ordered together with other Indonesian neighbors, arrived at my home four days prior to Eid. The distribution of the foods was unforgottable. One by one neighbor came to our home to pick their orders at that day. Not only picking foods, they also dropped their cooking or shopping as iftar foods for other neighbors (see in the videos below). Wow! We indeed had no party during the time of pandemic (our last gathering was on February), but we’re so blessed to manage foods sharing such way in Ramadan. That day became also became our first meeting to some neighbors since the COVID19 storm forced us to be in a quarantine.

I offered to Aisar if he wanted to open some to try (he ordered gudeg Jogja set and I decided the others), but he said to keep our ordered foods until Eid and take the pictures of all later. OKAY.. then, here it is, little documentation when I was unboxing those tempting foods. All is authentic and deserves endorsement!!

Eid Hampers

Besides social distancing we’re practicing currently, the reason I skipped cooking Eid feast was hamper, or in traditional term: parcel . Yeah, started from accepting hampers from some friends, we’re motivated to do the same, but what will we give? Unfortunately, we just had that idea on D-1 before Eid. Too late to order online or so! And since the state of emergency was still active, we also refrained from taking train or bus. Meanwhile, stubborn mama named Ega said we had to finish sending them by tomorrow (Day-D Eid) otherwise we’re better to give up.

Aisar still worked regularly that day, so actually the job fell into myself. I left home and cycled around Yaguchi and Kamata shotengai (street market) to find any matched item for hampers. The moment when I was looking around and had nothing after hours,  I got the idea for making those hampers by myself. I knew it’s gonna be hard, and the delivery would be another work, but Aisar supported it, so I went back home and started 1 x 24 hours baking to make 13 cakes. LOL

SUMMARY

Eid in the middle of Pandemic is totally possible, Guys! Even we felt there were abundance of blessings. No work, no school, and no outing during Ramadan so everyone could gather more as family and did the prayers together. Musa even managed to make fasting debut the whole month with twice iftar. Noah? He mastered the shalah poses. Hahaha. Many new habits had been formed to such as reciting Quran everyday for Musa. Not meeting other people on Eid also forced us to purify our heart from any bugs easier, and showed that there’s nothing to show up (great clothes, amount of foods, big house, jewelry, etc.) because all the goodness in dunya actually belongs to Allah.