Sizdeh Bedar this year: Tue -2Apr 2019
Sizdeh Bedar ( 13th day of the Persian New Year ) marks the end of Norouz holiday. Persians celebrate such day by spending the day outdoors picnicking. Families will pack their lunch and head out to the park of their choice to spend the day enjoying the warmer temperatures of spring time while hanging out with family and friends.
On this so called “unlucky” day Persian people leave their home and spend their time outdoors in picnic style with families and friends. Since this is the last day of New Year celebrations and holiday, Iranians love to entertain themselves by dancing, singing, playing around and enjoying the specially prepared foods together. These fun makings and laughter is believed as a way of clearing their “evil thoughts” for the started new year
Also on this special day people get a chance to enjoy the fresh smell of spring before returning to their schools or work on the following day onwards and therefore it is also called as the “Nature Day”.
There are traditional games played on Sizdah Bedar, special good luck “strategies”
There are some traditions done by people:
Releasing sprouting greens back into nature
A ritual performed at the end of the picnic is to throw away the greenery collected for Haft-Seen, the customary setting of Nowruz in Iran. Touching someone else’s greenery on this day or bringing it back home is considered a bad omen.
Special lunch is being served on13 Be-dar
Knotting the greenery
Knotting the greenery is customary for young single people, especially young girls. They tie the leaves of the greenery before discarding it, expressing a wish to find a partner or a husband.
Lie of the ThirteenLie of the Thirteen is the Iranian version of the prank-playing April Fools’ Day which is observed on the first or second day of April in Iran, on the day of Sizdah Bedar. Pranks have reportedly been played on this holiday since 536 BC in the Achaemenid Empire