Shab-e Yalda at our place, light, poetry, and far too many nuts

A civilised way of dealing with December

We are very bad at darkness in the UK. We rush to fill it, brighten it, drown it out, decorate it, or pretend it’s not there at all. We string lights over it, buy our way through it, pour wine into it, and then wonder why we feel vaguely hollow by New Year. December becomes something to survive rather than something to relax in.

Shab-e Yalda, the Persian celebration of the winter solstice, offers a different idea. It marks the longest, darkest night of the year and treats it not as a problem, but as a turning point to wait for the light. So we did.

We gathered friends, lit candles, drank tea, ate fruit and nuts and whatever else we had to hand, and stayed up late. It was unexpectedly calming, like the emotional equivalent of putting your feet up after a long day you didn’t realise had been heavy.

Shab-e Yalda is not a party. It’s more of a pause. Families and friends sit together, share symbolic food, read poetry, drink tea and tell stories. It is, essentially, a very civilised way of dealing with the month.

At our house, there were coats on the beds, children drifting in and out of rooms upstairs and downstairs, Persian and Western music in the background, and the quiet pleasure of not needing to be anywhere else.

The British short-haired cat we were looking after for the hols took one look at the guests, the candles, and the emotional earnestness of it all and opted out entirely. He relocated under Cyrus’s bed and refused to engage with any Persian culture for the evening.

The table as a story

The Yalda table is not decorative. It is narrative. Everything on it means something, whether or not you remember what that something is by the end of the evening.

We had:

• Ājil, a mix of nuts, seeds, and dried fruits, heavy on saffron-coated pistachios and cashews, which were genuinely excellent and dangerously easy to eat by the handful.
• Pomegranates, symbolising abundance and the colour of dawn, which cost us £14 from the West End of Newcastle and turned out to be a pale, apologetic pink inside rather than the deep jewelled red we had hoped for. Perfectly edible, but they were spiritually disappointing.
• Watermelon, although I am never entirely sure why since it feels resolutely like a summer fruit, but tradition insists and I am not brave enough to argue with centuries.
• Tea, endlessly replenished, because all meaningful life conversations happen over a warm cup.
• Christmas Market scented candles, which felt like cheating but were also perfect.

We were disappointed not to find quince this year, and genuinely sad to discover that our favourite little shirini shop, Honey, has closed. It was the sort of place that exists because someone cares, not because someone has a growth plan. Those places always seem to go first. We improvised. The children danced. We drank more tea. We ate fruit, nuts, and cupcakes to make up for the missing shirini, which felt culturally questionable but emotionally sound.

Poetry, badly, as intended

Somewhere between refilling the kettle and preventing Cyrus from trying his human pyramid dance move on an unsuspecting visitor, I nearly forgot the most important thing on the table, the book of Hafez. Imagine organising Christmas and forgetting the tree.

It was retrieved, opened at random, and read aloud beautifully by our friend from Shiraz, which is exactly how Hafez should be read. One of our friends asked me to make a wish before reading my fal-e Hafez (my fortune). Read more about fal-e Hafez.

The message I received back made sense, but loosely translated from poetry into life advice. It was that 2026 would require even more resilience. This felt sobering, but as a family we’ve had to be resilient for so many years now without seeing H’s family, so I’m really not a fan of the word.

Two left feet

Once the guests had gone, Cyrus and I decided to try Persian dancing. I should note here that I have two left feet. Three hours later, we had footage we agreed was not too bad, which is British for “we are strangely proud of this.” Give me Zumba any day. That I understand. Persian dancing is a fine art, and I remain politely illiterate. Still, we tried. Which felt like the point.

About the food, honestly

We had a lot of guests and not much time. So we made chicken wraps with potato wedges, hummus, salad, and olives. Everyone ate. No one complained. Nothing caught fire. It was not a Persian masterpiece. It was warm, functional food for people we liked. That felt right.

What the night is really for

We treat December as something to endure rather than inhabit. Shab-e Yalda suggests a different approach. Sit with the dark. Do not rush it. Do not panic about it. Mark it. Share it. Then notice when it shifts. Not that light always wins, but that we keep choosing it anyway. Here’s a colouring sheet that I forgot to give to the youngsters!