two things -
Happy 5 month bday to our future Curtis!
SEcond - happy New Year's - a few days early to Ethiopia. They celebrate on 9/11 - and it will be 2004! See the note below - our agency sent it out - figured they took it from some place. Sounds very cool - looking forward to celebrating something happy next year on a sad day!
gail
Ethiopia New Years
Ethiopia will be celebrating their new year on September 12. It will be the year 2004 for them. I found an article that I thought was interesting. It gives you an idea about some of their New Year's traditions, etc.....
Ethiopia Preparing to Celebrate New Year (Enkutatashe)
Posted on admin on September 7, 2011 //
Ethiopia is preparing to celebrate colorfully its New Year or Enkutatashe ("Gift of Jewels" in Amharic) i.e. 2004 on Monday based on its own ancient calendar which is eight years behind the Gregorian calendar.
The Ethiopic and Coptic calendars have 13 months, 12 months of 30 days each and an intercalary month at the end of the year of 5 or 6 days, depending whether the year is a leap year or not. The calendar totals 365 or 366 days.
This year, Enkutatashe falls on the 12 of September because of the leap year. Enkutatashe or spring festival is celebrated as the three months rainy season ends.
With the New Year approaching, the spirits of fresh beginnings are naturally in the air.
Here in Addis Ababa, home to around five million people, the New Year mood has already started, making the city busy, crowded and warm.
People are busy shopping for many things for the holiday.
Men are bargaining to buy different things for the holiday, including sheep, chicken or goat for slaughter on the day.
For the majority of Ethiopians, both Christians and Muslims, it is a must to slaughter a sheep, a goat or chicken on New Year's day to prepare Ethiopian traditional food such as chicken stew.
On the first day of the new year, people spend their time mainly at home eating and drinking traditional foods and drinks mostly cooked by women both in urban and rural areas of the country.
Men who are head of a family slaughter the sheep or goat early in the morning of the New Year.
The celebrations include visiting friends and families on the day, presenting them with gifts.
The New Year celebration is also a time when many people put forward their hopes, aspirations, resolutions and prospects like quit smoking cigarette, drinking alcohol or other bad habits.
A good number of Ethiopians in the Diaspora are also arriving to celebrate the New Year with their families.
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