It was a cold, winter night out in the great desert. The winds were howling, the crescent moon rested high in the sky. Out in the dark and desolate desert, a new life had been born into the world. Resting near the light of a fire, a woman sat, holdi...
So, this will probably a short one and I'm 99% sure it'll be the last Ramadan one, but who knows. Anyways, so for today, I'm just remembering things that happened in the later half of Ramadan in my childhood. I was actually planning to start this post on the 15th but well...here we are just before the end instead.
Anyways, not to sound materialistic, but as children, one of the things my siblings and I looked forward to about Eid was new clothes. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but like, up until around 9/11, my brothers pretty much were always in thobes and kufis. Going out, especially to the Masjid and such, we had our turbans on too (and sometimes in doors as well lol). And it wasn't that our parents bought us a ton of thobes and such to wear.
Nope.
My mom sewed them. And the main time for that was in the last half of Ramadan. I can remember year after year getting called out one-by-one to get measured up. Having to stand in her room or in the frontroom while she measured our length and width, and maaaan I remember the cold, metal tip of her measuring tape when she pressed it the back of our necks. I remember sometimes thinking she got her reading and so I'd move from whatever uncomfortable position (we also got pants made lol) and she'd be mad because she didn't write the number yet and would have to measure again.
I remember seeing the material she or my father bought and watching as she chalked out the lining for where she would cut and sew etc. The excitement we had as the days went by and we'd be called in to try on our partially completed thobes, inside-out so we don't get em dirty and so she could see the linings. And I remember collecting the scraps of material sometimes to sneak and make a "thobe" or ghutrah for my action figures (remember the first post?) so they could have new Eid stuff too XD
Sometimes I'd then get yelled at because those scraps weren't really scraps, she was gonna use them to make pockets for us lol oops. And I remember when my middle sister was like 2 years old and she got a fancy dress bought for her and some golden shoes which for some reason she called her "daba dops" XD hold on, i gotta text her rn and remind her lol.
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Anyways, yeah, and oh, we used to go matching. That was a big thing. All three of us boys would have matching thobes and kufis and turbans when we went. And my two (at the time) sisters would have matching dresses and hijabs and shoes (except when the middle sis got her daba dops lol). And what did we always get asked? "ARE YOU GUYS TRIPLETS?!"
-___________- I can't tell you how many times I wanted to smack some brainless adults who legitimately asked this. I mean, obviously most of them were just teasing because of the way we were matching, but some actually legit thought we were even though we hardly looked alike, our skin tones were so very different, and our sizes were just... like the oldest was obviously a good few inches taller than me, then the middle was taller too and much heavier, then I was like still a skinny freakn five year old dude too shy to answer or even look at the person asking the dumb question who wished would just go away and not speak to me.