New tradition

For mattu pongal, the tradition followed by my grandparents and parents are to cook nonveg dishes for dinner and offer it to our ancestors. Usually, at pooja room there will be a block of wood that is polished with turmeric and kumkum. This is called “Nadu veedu” (literal translation is center of the house). This wood block is worshiped as our ancestors. On mattu pongal day, they are worshiped and offered a lavished non veg platter.

I have not followed this tradition all this year and yesterday evening got the idea of starting it from this year as both of my in-laws passed away in past few years and this is a good way to worship them and get their blessings. My platter today had chicken pepper gravy, white rice, sweet paniyaaram (debut attempt), medu vada and boiled eggs. Hope to continue with this tradition!

LHB and I spent some quality time making one of the blocks and a STEM kit that he received as a gift. Trust me, the mini blocks took about 2 hours to complete. The boy gave up in the middle and I scratched my head to complete it! The STEM kit is an air purifier and we learned some science with it.

January long weekend also means pack up all Christmas decorations. We did that as well.