Creating My Own Holiday Traditions as a Muslim
- Aleenah Ansari
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Growing up Muslim, I didn’t have many holiday traditions, so I learned to create my own.
Today, I’m a Seattle-based writer who has learned to create traditions and define home on my own terms. As a kid, I couldn’t sing the words to the season’s greatest hits, didn’t spend the last month of the year shopping for presents, and never set out cookies for Santa. Instead, Christmas was a day when I would pick up extra shifts to cover for co-workers who were out of town to see their families, and I’d usually find myself needing to get something from the grocery store, only to realize that everything was closed. I didn’t mind this very much because I knew that the holidays were a special time for other people who may be reuniting with friends and family, and I was never doing anything nearly as sentimental.
But when I saw colourful advertisements filled to the brim with candy canes, ornaments, green and red twinkling lights, and hundreds of posts from friends about the most wonderful time of year, I wondered if I was missing out on something special. I felt grateful that I didn’t have to brave the highs and lows of navigating the airports and weather delays during December, but what about everything else?
When my now wife and I started dating, we talked about how I had never celebrated Christmas in earnest. She’s Filipino and I’m Pakistani, so we traded stories about her family’s Christmas traditions and how I celebrated Ramadan, usually by breaking my fast with a date as Prophet Muhammad did, or getting a new outfit to celebrate Eid. She told me about the big family get-togethers that her family would have to celebrate Christmas, and how it was a place where she and her cousins could catch up.
Eventually, we moved in together and started celebrating Christmas together. It was an opportunity to create our own rituals, which are crucial for fostering bonds, trust, and belonging. We started with a pre-decorated tree that my mom used to put out when hosting work Christmas parties, so all we had to do was clear a corner of our apartment and plug it in. It was only 2 feet tall, so we put it on a cardboard box covered in a red bedsheet to make it a little more festive. To make my first “official” Christmas celebration more special, my wife wanted to ensure that I had lots of presents to unwrap and filled my stocking to the brim. All of the gifts were things that I had mentioned needing or wanting in passing, like a Polaroid camera or a new scrapbook, and I felt so lucky that someone was paying attention to what mattered to me.
But the gifts weren’t what made Christmas important to me. It was the fact that we got to define how to celebrate Christmas on our own terms, even if that was different from the traditions we grew up with. It also means that I don’t have to spend it alone anymore.
Our rituals extended to include my wife’s family, which helped us feel more connected even when so many other things around us were changing. These days, Christmas with my wife and her family involves wearing matching pajamas, strategically picking gifts for the white elephant gift exchange, and making excuses for why we can’t be next on the karaoke list. One year, we even made paroles, which are traditional Filipino star-shaped lanterns. Sometimes we decorate a gingerbread house before comparing our design choices and promptly biting off a piece to eat.
My wife and I also have a smaller celebration on our own, which we spend by decorating our Christmas tree with ornaments we’ve gifted each other every year and visiting holiday markets so we can support local businesses. We love shopping from small businesses and supporting local makers, and I’ve even writteun gift guides about some of my favorite BIPOC-owned businesses to make it easier for others to shop small during this season. With each intentional decision, we’re ensuring that we spend according to our values and support the creatives in our city and beyond.
This year, I’ve started a new tradition that was born out of a recent hobby: collecting Inciardi mini prints. I’ve traveled across the country to visit specialty grocery stores, gift shops, and museums to exchange quarters for $1 Inciardi prints, which I collect in my binder that I’ve lovingly organised by theme. Each year, the artist has a booth at the holiday market in Grand Central Terminal and although I wasn’t able to visit in person this year, I did get a chance to grab prints online, including prints from the Grand Central Terminal collection, winter collection, and dinner party collection. My wife got me some mystery packs as an early Christmas present so we could join in on the fun, and we opened them together at home. I had the best time organising each of the prints in the hopes of framing them, and the holiday designs feel even more special because they remind me of the little life that I’ve built at home.
When I think about all the rituals that we have in our own home, I feel grateful that I get to experience this time of year on my own terms. It’s a reminder that we can decide how we want to celebrate the holidays, religious or not, and to be open to creating new traditions with the people we love.
