Junior Lilja Kiiski’s Easter celebration traditionally starts off with going to the Easter service at her church with her family. Kiiski fondly recalls this service, because unlike a traditional Sunday, it often starts with a big breakfast enjoyed by the entire congregation, followed by a lively service filled with joy and singing.
Easter is a Christian holiday celebrated on the first Sunday after a full moon following the spring equinox. This year, the date falls on March 31, and Kiiski plans on continuing the annual celebration tradition by attending a vibrant church service and enjoying the singing.
“For Easter, we have a lot more songs,” Kiiski said. “We have a choir, so they sing a lot for it, and the service is generally longer, so there is just a lot more praise singing.”
After she comes home from service, Kiiski and the rest of her family dedicate the rest of the day to spending time together. For instance, they often participate in an Easter egg hunt, play board games and eat an Easter dinner. Traditionally, the dinner consists of lamb — as Jesus is believed to be the Lamb of God — but due to the meat’s price, Kiiski and her family often substitute it with beef. Kiiski enjoys the time she gets to spend with her family because she feels it’s an opportunity to spend quality time together that they often do not get due to how busy everyone is.
Kiiski also takes part in Lent, which is a 40-day period in which Christians traditionally partake in fasting or moderation in preparation to celebrate Easter. Lent commemorates the events leading up to the death of Jesus Christ, while the day of Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Kiiski and her family practice moderation by choosing to not eat sweets. She acknowledges how she's grown to better understand the importance of Lent and of Easter as she’s gotten older.
“When I was younger, Easter was a lot more focused on being able to eat chocolate,” Kiiski said. “Now as I've grown older I think I do kind of realize just the importance of the holidays.”
When junior Bernice Kwong and her family moved from San Jose to Cupertino, they decided to start going to church and adopt the Christian faith. Every year since then, they enjoy celebrating and participating in Easter festivities.
Kwong and her family are currently part of a non-traditional Orthodox Church, a Chinese Cantonese congregation that often prepares Chinese dishes for Easter. However, Kwong has visited a variety of different types of churches with varying Easter celebrations in the past. She recalls one of the churches she visited when she was younger would put on an Easter play with all the youth members. In the play, they would dress up and act out the story of Jesus’ rebirth. Kwong believes the celebrations at church have allowed her to develop a deeper connection with Christianity.
“I celebrate with my church members because religion isn't something that's really prevalent in my family, because everyone has a different religious path,” Kwong said. “We all believe in similar things like Christianity, but we all have different depths of understanding of Easter.”
Though Kwong has celebrated Easter for years, her views of Easter as a holiday have changed greatly as she has grown up. As a kid, Kwong remembers Easter more for the activities rather than the religious aspects. She recalls she and the other youth members at church being bored by the Bible lessons held on Easter, but excited for the egg hunt that came after. As she’s grown older, Kwong has been able to appreciate aspects of Easter outside of the games to a greater extent.
“I went to this Christian afterschool and I remember sometimes the pastor would come and then he would recite the story and then the meanings behind it, but as kids, no one would listen to him, because it was just something silly, right?” Kwong said. “I think later on, reflecting back on it, I realized how important remembering Easter is because it's a community day.”
Today, Kwong ties the holiday with Bible verse John 3:16, one she remembers everyone memorizing as a kid and still can recite as “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting love.” She feels as though John 3:16 fully encompasses the religious aspect of her feelings on Easter.
“As a kid, you would see these kinds of verses in the easter eggs that we would crack open and it basically just means a holiday that gives us the rebirth of God,” Kwong said. “And also the reason why when we sin, we do not perish or die, but we are forgiven. So it's just a holiday which is a reminder that no matter what situation happens, bad or like really, really bad, everything's going to be OK in the end.”
Junior Ridwan Khan has many fond memories associated with the Islamic holiday Ramadan. He recalls being able to enjoy fruit clusters made by his mother — food the whole family appreciates and enjoys — and to get closer to his family and community through having meals with them and experiencing Ramadan traditions together.
Ramadan is traditionally observed on the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and is celebrated by Muslims as the month the Holy Qur'an was sent from heaven as a guidance for salvation. Khan, a Muslim from birth, has celebrated the holiday for as long as he can remember.
During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast every day from sunrise to sunset. To break the fast, they often make and consume a variety of cultural dishes. Khan’s family enjoys making and adjusting many of the traditional dishes into foods that suit their tastes.
“I think everyone takes the same traditional, simple dishes and they sort of go all out with them,” Khan said. “Different people make different things because it's not just like one culture, right? Islam is so many different cultures.”
Since Khan moved to California from Illinois, he has come to appreciate the strong Muslim representation in the Bay Area. When he first moved, the celebration felt grounding — in a new place, it was a burst of normalcy. Now, Ramadan is a way to become closer with his community.
“Ramadan is a way to connect with people that I don't see a lot, even if they live in the Bay Area,” Khan said. “The Muslim community is really big and you don't really realize that until you go to these prayers and stuff on these holidays.”
During the holiday, Muslims in the community often throw parties. Khan recalls going from house to house and enjoying the festive atmosphere. As he has gotten older, Khan acknowledges his growing connection to the more religious aspects of the holiday rather than celebrations.
“When I was younger, I enjoyed more of the festival part of it,” Khan said. “I feel like as I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate the actual religious aspects of Ramadan.”
Senior Aya Abedelrahman celebrates Ramadan through spending time with her family and community, attending a multitude of Qiyyams — all-night events with prayers and lectures at her mosque — in order to get closer to her faith. To her, Ramadan is a time of being able to feel closer to Islam and getting the chance to correct any bad habits she may have picked up throughout the year.
Ramadan includes a multitude of special celebrations and meals, given the common practice of fasting, which leaves a window in the evening to eat. Abdelrahman enjoys eating these unique meals surrounded by members of her mosque.
“A unique celebration we have is Iftars, basically fancy dinners, and we go to two of them on the weekends,” Abdelrahman said. “We eat dates to break our fast but after that we just eat anything we want to eat.”
Following the pattern of community in her celebrations, Abdelrahman also celebrates Eid al-Fitr, a holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. Members of the mosque often give gifts to each other on Eid al-Fitr to celebrate the hard work they put in during the month. Abdelrahman remembers having many fond memories of gift-giving with her friends.
“Me and my friends would always get to the mosque really early and start making goodie bags and giving them to everybody driving by and it was really fun,” Abdelrahman said.
