"For every people there is a feast and this is our feast" said the Prophet (S) to Aboo Bakr (R). [Bukhari and Muslim]. "

Eid is around the corner and we all are excited and just waiting for it. But how do we celebrate it?

The most known Sunnah to be followed on the day of Eid is to Take A Ghusl, Wear new clothes, Attend the Eid prayer with our family, Congratulate each other, Visit family and friends, Exchange gifts,etc.

But here below are few points to make our Eid even more enjoyable, exciting and memorable…

1. DECORATE OUR HOMES/PARTY HALLS:  A wonderful way to make our homes look brighter and joyful for the children. Get our children involved in the decoration of our homes. We can use balloons, decoration papers, lights, etc.  Buy party caps for children.

2. CAKES: We can buy cakes with Eid Mubarak written on it. But make sure candles are not there on the cake. We shouldn't do anything against our Islamic culture.

3. QURAN RECITATION COMPETITION: We can organise a competition at home for our children and invite their friends and make them recite any surah which they have learnt during the month of Ramadan and give gifts to the children. This will encourage children to learn more. If children can learn Filmi(unislamic) songs within just few times of hearing, is it difficult for those kids to learn few ayats from the Qur'an??

4. ENTERTAINTMENT/ GAMES: Entertainment is very much allowed in Islam, and specially on Eid it's a Sunnah. But to what extent it is allowed we need to make sure.

There are so many Islamic nasheeds for children exclusively and many nasheeds on Eid too. This way children can learn meaningful nasheeds and will not make them feel that 'Islam doesn't allow entertaintment'.

If men and women are gathered together at one place, then make sure separate arrangements are made for women and men separately so that women can have their share of fun without having other non-mahram men listen to them. In this way, even the women can enjoy in their own special ways.

Make arrangements for games for our children.

The above  points will give an impression to our children that Eid is a day of celebration and on Eid we can decorate our homes, cut cakes, and have loads of fun etc.  And it need not necessarily be a 'birthday party' to have such a celebration.

We can celebrate Eid in this manner without having any kind of guilt in our hearts that we are doing something Unislamic.  We will not have to feel guilty that after a wonderful blessed month of Ramadan, we are committing sins. In this way even children will have a wonderful time and will be very excited about celebrating eid and wont consider eid as a 'boring day'.

We have to keep in mind that we are celebrating Eid just afer the completion of the Holy month. The month in which we have done so much of ibadat and we have trained ourself during this month so that we can continue our increased ibadat during the following months. So do we want our ibadat to go down the drain just by celebrating our Eid in an unislamic manner???

Eid is definitely a day to be enjoyed, but we need to make sure Allah isn't upset with us in the way we are celebrating it. Just because Ramadan is over, it doesn't mean that we can do anything and everything our hearts desire…

May Allah bless us all, have mercy on us, accept all our good deeds and make this upcoming Eid very enjoyable for all of us.