Just another blink of an eye and we see November 2023 is already ticking down to its final moments. The great Indian festive season came and flew away, it was quite a delightful experience, just like that momentarily embrace of a cold autumn breeze. My anxiety had been quite at its peak this year, watching how fast I must cross out the days on the calendar, nonetheless, I was fascinated (in a not very positive way) to see we are already starting with December.
December has a very special place in my heart if you are already not aware of this fact. The thing to look forward to in December is of course my very own sweet birthday, and also those festive vibes of Christmas and Jingle Bell Ball performances are always worth the wait. But we’ve got enough time to talk about December, haven’t we? So let’s take a look back and revisit the memories of November 2023, shall we?
November Recap
With the exception of one really awful week, November turned out to be a fantastic month for me. Well, it was supposed to be a good month here in India, wasn’t it? With all Diwali celebrations and everything, I was so excited about it.
Every year since I started my blog, I’ve published a special Diwali blog entry, but this year I was running behind schedule. Well, I will definitely not put the blame on myself this time for the delay though, a horrible fever & cold wave hit me a few days after Diwali and I fell extremely sick. I’m feeling alright now, thank you, but that’s what caused the delay guys, I’m sorry for that. But better late than never, isn’t it?
Diwali Highlights
So Diwali was on November 12 this year. I actually prefer the celebration in October for no specific reason, though perhaps it’s just that I adore this time of the year. You know Diwali vibe is just different, and it is beautiful. It is, after all, my favorite festival for a number of reasons.
So we started the preparations as soon as November started. Most of the preparations in Diwali revolves around cleaning you know. Every single corner, both inside and outside the house, must be neat and clean. And it’s such a heavy work. You have to trash what’s already correct before you can do it right. I’m sure those who celebrate Diwali know what I mean very well. The whole house becomes a complete mess during cleaning and for a few days it’s hard to find anything at all at ease.
Let me tell you a funny incident (Now don’t expect something really funny, alright?). It was the day before Dhanteras (November 10). The festival of Diwali starts with Dhanteras which is celebrated a couple of days before Diwali. So yeah, all the cleaning work had to be completed within the day. We only had the store room left for cleaning so I took the job with my sister. Mind you, this store room I’m talking about was last thoroughly cleaned a year ago, that was precisely on Diwali 2022.
Soon after we had started the work, I was regretting it. Mom had warned us to not go too deep into cleaning but thanks to my sister’s habit of trying to do everything perfectly, we ended up working there for hours in dust. At last, when it was done, my body automatically threw itself on the couch, and well, I dozed off. The consequences of that day of my hard work led to me catching a cold the following night. So the moral of the story is that don’t go to sleep yet while you’re still covered in dust, no matter how exhausted you must be, or else you will regret it later.
Wow, it wasn’t really ‘funny’ I see. Well, I warned you guys. Anyway, then following the Chhoti Diwali, on November 12, came Diwali. I usually share pictures of my garden on Diwali, with all those flowers of marigold it looks really beautiful. But sadly, we didn’t have the flowers this year. My mom usually plants the flowers every year a few months before Diwali, but unfortunately her arm got fractured so…
I like making garlands with the flowers of my garden but we had to skip that part this year and buy the flowers instead. And I’m sure none of you are interested in those market flowers so I took some pictures of what I had in the garden that day so I could share with y’all…
Around 5 o’clock, we made rangoli. I was fairly satisfied with how it turned out (We made a very similar design last year too which shows that my creativity doesn’t work well with rangoli lol).
At 7 o’clock we did the puja and at last, came the time to lit up the diyas…
You know decorating the house with diyas is one of the best feelings ever. It feels somehow magical, I don’t know, I love it so much. Nowadays, people don’t use many diyas, maybe they think it’s old-fashioned or something I don’t know, but they do most of the decorations with lights. Lights look okay but diyas still win for me.
So that was all Diwali for me guys. It was fabulous this year. However I absolutely hated the week after due to health reasons. November was a good month for me overall. We also had our internal exams going on the whole month but it didn’t feel much since there were many days off. I also enjoyed re-reading the Harry Potter series after such a long time (I started reading in October by the way). My sis bought a new karaoke set and it has been super fun in the evenings singing evergreen hits with family.
One thing I feel bad about the past month is that I couldn’t practice guitar enough and didn’t even post anything on my blog. But surely there will be some end-of-year posts next month, I hope you will look forward to that. Until next time!
Let me know about your month in the comment section below. How do you like the festival Diwali?
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