Hag el Laila

We Emiratis celebrate the occasion of? “Hag El Laila which is a traditional event where kids go from house to house singing a traditional song called “Gergian” and collect treats. In the United Arab Emirates it is celebrated in the middle of Sha’ban (the holy month before Ramadan). “Hag El Laila”? falls as a tradition and culture of the United Arab Emirates, it is celebrated in all the Gulf countries where the name differs from one country to another. So basically, its a Khaleeji Halloween with no scary costumes. In this day, families purchase different kinds of nuts and sweets for the kids. Children start roaming in? the streets wearing their traditional clothing and carrying bags specially made for this occasion. They start in the afternoon to gather, candies , and nuts that they receive from homeowners. The fun and humorous is what happens between the kids at the end of the night when they start to? show off? which one has collected more sweets, nuts among themselves.

To extract from this occasion some of the social and entertaining indications. These remarkable features demonstrate the pattern of the social relations between the UAE individuals , as well as spreading the life of cordiality and familiarity. These signs appear through the attention of the families when sharing the joy with their kids. The occasion of “Hag El Laila” also gives an impression of good-neighborliness and generosity besides the joy and happiness to the hearts of children, and remind them through this night that Ramadan is coming. This occasion has changed over the time. A lot of factors affected it, for instance , people start to use luxury containers and wrapping, use different and expensive kind of sweets instead of the old sweets and nuts. They also add money in addition to the sweets which make the kids feel happy about it . The girls wear their special dresses (traditional ones and gold) for the occasion. Unfortunately as time passes some people start to overlook this habit because of many reasons. People in the past were close to each other and the life was simple, however, nowadays because of the development and urbanization as well as the hot weather , people start? to fear to send their kids outside their homes. It is very depressing to see people not paying attention to this occurrence which is considered one of our traditions. We would very much encourage families to still celebrate it as? it promotes the relation among the members of the society and cause pleasure and comfort in the hearts of children and adults at the same time. The question is Do we want to discourage it? Let such tradition fade away or boost the life in it again?