Open House

Its approaching the 3rd of Shawal. How many Open Houses did you go to? Must be plenty!

I don’t know when this tradition started. I have no idea. All I know is people start sending out invitations a few days before Raya to family and friends. Then when the time comes, we will go visit, having lots to eat and leave. There we were amongst other guests in the house. A little chit chat with the next person who happen to know you or keep quiet for the whole duration! We made it a habbit not to spend too much time lingering around the houses though. Then we leave, some other guests arrive, do the same and leave.

Should I say I have a love-hate feeling towards it?

Why?

Firstly, awkwardness. Especially when the host house is rather small then when there are too many people arrive at the same time, then there is not enough seat to sit on. Or caught between a long queue like in restaurants. During eating, another awkwardness when people start to arrive (again), and don’t know what to do? should we just quickly finish eating and leave and give the next available seat to the next guest? Or should we just take our sweet time and eat as if no care in the world? Whats the right ethic? And this usually happens when everyone starts arriving during lunch or dinner time! Haha.. for obvious reason that people do not have to worry about lunch and dinner anymore.

Its all done in a rush. When we come to visit an open house, we knock on the door, say Salam then the host will greet you at the door, invite you to come in and say “Bah.. silakan... or Taruskan tah...” without us even hold our next breath or take our seat! Its like go straight to the dining room, eat whatever you can, chit chat for a bit then off we go. There is no that sense of warmth or good friendly nature to the visits anymore, well, maybe some while we are busy munching our food!

But the best thing for me to go to Open Houses is that I enjoy seeing other people houses. I tell you some have really nice and big houses. We were at awe the moment we stepped in. There was this house hubby took me to that took my breath away. It was really a beautiful home. I just love to see that but I sometimes wonder, what is the purpose of people doing open house and invite so many people, every year? Is it just to show the house off? Wa Allah Wa’alam.

Lets just hope we wont miss the whole idea of Silatul Rahim between all the muslim, after all thats what it is all about isn’t it? Lets us just do that.  Well.. to sum up, we’ll go to one open house later and our daughter will also go to another one (her teacher). And another big one next week, organised by the office. See what I mean? I hope that’s the last one for this year.