Eid Celebrations Make Me Feel Lonely In My Mixed-Race ...

Eid literally means “feast” or “festival” and is a day for Muslims around the world to celebrate. It’s a bit like Christmas for Muslims, except we have two of them: Eid al-Fitr, to mark the end of our holy month, Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha (which is this coming Sunday), to commemorate the sacrifice of the prophet Abraham. I used to love everything about Eid: the getting-ready process with my mum, sitting on her bed and inhaling the plumes of hairspray and perfume; waiting for Dad to bring us roses after his morning trip to the mosque; baking hundreds of desserts and handing them out to the community; scoffing sirkumu (a delicious concoction of butter, milk, cardamom, sugar, saffron, almonds, vermicelli, pistachios and dates) for breakfast. Now, it all made me feel a little empty inside.