For Kirsten Kutz and Duraid Adnan, along with thousands of other families around the world, this weekend will be a special one.
When the couple married in 2019, their union brought together two religious backgrounds. While Kutz, who was born in the US, was raised Catholic, Adnan, who is from Iraq, is Muslim.
Four years and two children later, the couple have found a way to incorporate both religions into their family, which will culminate with an extra special day on Sunday, when Easter and Ramadan celebrations overlap.
Last year Ramadan and Easter overlapped for the first time in 33 years. As both are moveable holidays, the instances of the holy celebrations overlapping only occur about three times per century.
And with another overlap this year, Kutz and Adnan, along with Lily, 3, and Leo, 11 months, will be making the most of this weekend’s celebrations.
“We’ve been having lots of friends over for iftar,” Kutz says. “On Saturday, we’ll dye eggs and on Sunday, we have an Easter egg hunt with Lily’s friends.”
Adnan adds: “And Kirsten will be making an Easter dinner with roast chicken that we will eat for iftar on Sunday.”
Their house in Jumeirah Village Triangle, Dubai, is filled with Ramadan decorations, including lanterns, a crescent moon and a chalk board counting down to Eid Al Fitr. On Easter Sunday, they will put wooden eggs out in the garden, and give each of the children Easter baskets.
As well as getting the children involved with both celebrations, Kutz and Adnan support each other, with Kutz often fasting during the month of Ramadan, and Adnan joining her to give up something for lent. This year, the couple chose sugar.
“It’s been hard because sweets are a big part of Ramadan, but it's supposed to be hard,” Adnan says. “For iftar, I usually start with dates and go slow with the meals until we get to the sweets, so that big part is missing this time.”
While it may be a rare occasion, it’s not just on the instance of Ramadan and Easter falling together that the family incorporate the two religions into holiday celebrations. During Christmas, they make maamoul, Arabic date pastries, to serve for dessert, and, during Ramadan, they make Christmas cookies to offer during iftar.
As a family, they are paving their own way when it comes to traditions, something that began with their wedding, when they took parts of a traditional Iraqi ceremony, such as henna, and components of a traditional US wedding, like writing their own vows, to create a celebration that captured who they are as a couple.
“At the end of the day, when we look at the most important part of each religion, almost always what comes out of it is that you need to try to be a good person and you need to try to help people,” Kutz says. “That's the basis of almost everything that we do and what we try to teach the children.
“All of our traditions hark back to that and it’s a really beautiful thing to experience. It's important for our children to know that there's much more that brings us together than divides us.”
