<h3>Happy New Year To All Muslims</h3>

We always make it a point to greet each other Happy New Year on the 1st of January but how many of us even realise when is the actual Muslim New Year??? How many bother to wish a fellow Muslim happy new year??? FYI last Wednesday, 9th February 2005 was the Muslim New Year. While we were busy wishing our Chinese friends and neighbours Happy New Year, some of us forgot to wish our own family members and other Muslim friends.

Same goes for The Don and me. We had chosen that fateful day to hold our doa selamat kenduri and "housewarming" since many of our friends and The Don's side of the family complained that they did not manage to see our house during the wedding. It was near the day when my FIL mentioned that it was also Awal Muharram. Well...what a great day to hold the event. Celebrate a new stage of life, in a new house on a New Year !!!

We didn't invite many ppl, just relatives and absolutely close friends only. Guests started streaming in from morning even though our invitation was from 2pm. Of course my siblings came, my uncles were all engaged with the new year/end of year doa reciting at various mosques but all my aunts came. Almost all of The Don's uncles and aunts came. So did both his grandmothers. And they stayed for quite long... watching the wedding video over and over again. I think the vcd must have played about 4/5 times on Wednesday alone. I got sooo sick of seeing myself on tv!!!

After Maghrib, our friends started coming. Our neighbours Kak Liza n Abg Noor, our close friends, Sportylisa, Naniz & Man. The Don's reservist kakis and his Ba'alwie mosque buddies. Our last guest left at 1.30am that night.

The food was lovingly prepared by both our moms. We wanted to cater but our moms insisted they can cook much nicer n at much cheaper cost and they wouldn't budge despite our insistence. So we left it in their hands. And Alhamdulillah, between the both of them, they created a feast. There was dalchar, ayam masak merah, rendang, sambal goreng pengantin, sambal tumis, serunding, mee hoon goreng, kuih lopis, kuih kole2 (how in the world is it spelt?) and pulut serunding. Some guests even remarked that the food is akin to that of a wedding invitation. Wait.. I think we've had enough of that for a while.

The day went super smoothly and our gifts were splendid. There were rice cookers, lamps, cloth materials, bedsheets, dinnerware, glassware, cakes and many other knick knacks. The gift I like most though is the wonderful Royal Symphony quilt cover bought by our 4 dear friends.

It was wonderful holding an event like this. We seriously enjoyed it, notwithstanding the mess that we have to clean afterwards. It gave us such pleasure to see so many people at our place, especially since my parents-in-laws and some of my siblings stayed the night. Actually we all hardly slept at all... there was simply too much to talk about. We laughed and joked in the wee hours of the morning as if it were in the day. In the end The Don and I surrendered at 3am while the rest finally slept at 5am. We ceretainly wouldn't mind having another event like this again in the future.