Many Nepalis celebrate Dashain in a very grand way. But there are some among us who – for whatever reason it might be – don’t or can’t take part in the festivities. And if you are not tied by any cultural or religious customs, this long period of break where you have nothing to occupy you might get a little boring.
So we at The Week brainstormed, asked for suggestions, and got busy on the internet to come up with a list of things you can do to keep yourself happily engaged during this time of the year.
Organize your closet
Re-organizing your wardrobe is a lot of work. It’s not something people do every single day. On most days, we just shove everything inside our closet and run out the door because we don’t have the time to manage our wardrobe in the morning and are too tired to do that at night. So, doing this during the holidays seems reasonable. You have plenty of time on your hands and a lot of clothes to fold, hang, and sort out. You could also iron all of the clothing articles that are prone to creasing so that you don’t have to spend extra time on this once the holidays are over and you have to get back to ‘real life’.
Holiday happiness
Rearrange the furniture or redecorate your room
We spend a lot of time inside our bedrooms, especially on days when we do not have to go to work or school. Staying in the same surrounding for so many days (years essentially) can make your mind more and more dull over time and close your mind off to newer more creative ideas, when you are inside the room. Moving your furniture is a very effective way to give a new look to you room and make it feel fresher, lighter, and fun. Additionally, you can also clean out those nooks, corners and places that were hard to reach during the previous furniture arrangement. Something else that can be done to remodel your room is painting the walls a completely different color or changing the carpet, rugs and (window) drapes.
Catch up on your favorite TV series and finish reading the novels or books you have been putting off
As much as we love what HBO or Star World is airing, we can’t always get the time to sit through an entire hour-long episode. Some of us might be so busy that we can not even afford to lose time by sitting through a two and half hour long movie – even if we had been eagerly anticipating its release for quite some time. Holidays, however, can be a good time to catch up on your favorite shows and movies. On a similar note, you can also pick up and go through all the books you had been putting off reading because of your busy schedule during the rest of the year.
Cultivate a new useful habit
Maybe you have trouble waking up early in the morning, maybe you have bad spending habits or maybe you don’t always have the motivation to cook healthy (and organic) food for yourself so you always end up indulging in junk or fast food. All of us have some habits that we really want to give up but somehow the habit never seems to go away. Make Dashain holidays the time when you finally (and consciously) work on those habits and cultivate some new habits that will really benefit you in the long run.
Soak up the last of sunrays
We have already lived through more than half of this year’s autumn and by the time the Dashain holidays are over, we will only have a few – if any – days left to enjoy the warm weather. So soak up the warmth as much as you can. We recommend you go to one of the three Durbar Squares and spend the whole day there. Sip on some good tea or coffee and just enjoy watching the world go by. If you prefer a little more rigorous activity, you could also go swimming with your friends or family (or both).
Learn a new skill
There is no shortage of things to learn in your life. Even if you are somebody who is pretty good at your job, you might still be bad at other basic things like cooking, drawing, sewing etc. You can improve on those skills during the holidays. Also, it does not even have to be an activity. You can also simply learn about a topic that really interests you. And even though a lot of organizations are closed during Dashain and you might not be able to take classes should you want to do that, you can still find a lot of information about the things you want to learn on the internet.
Explore the city
Many of us still don’t know much about the city we live in. Dashain can be the ideal time for you to explore your city. As most people head off to their ancestral homes – that is generally not in the big cities – most towns are way more vacant than usual. Exploit this time and opportunity to really know your way around the city that you live in. Find shorter routes to reach places, hunt for good local eateries, and get to know where every other important organization or building is located within the city.
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