suggestions to do haldi kumkum in USA

prakrutiram · Jul 27, 2012

Dear Friends,

I have come to usa for first time and doing varalakshmi vratam also first time all alone.I planning for haldi kumkum on varalakshmi vratam day in evening,Plz i need suggestion what all i need to give ladies who come home for haldi kumkum (Parantam).

What kind of snacks can be offered?

plz suggest me soon as 2morow is the day.

looking forward for ur replies,

thanks,
prakruti

rose8282 · Jul 27, 2012

My MIL gave blouse piece,haldi kumkum and some inexpensive gift. You can give anything depending on availability. If you have the above,you can give them. Small gift could be anything like small steel bowl or even scented candles.
I recently did baby shower for my SIL and I wanted to give haldi kumkum but didnt find it in store. Their guest list was 75!!
So I got small party favor bags for 69-89 cents. Then in each bag, I put 1 banana and 1$ scented candle which come in glass jars. All of this you can get for cheap in Christmas tree or Dollar store.
It depends on what you want to give. I feel as long as you have good intention,it should be fine.

As for what snacks, make some pakodas. Also make some halwa..that can be used as prasad and given to eat same time. And then if you can pack in ziploc, you can give a bit of that in the party favor bag.So you see..here the options are endless...(By the way,Im not so religious..so if you are asking for customs, I am not sure)

devi123kar · Jul 27, 2012

Hi
You can pack haldi and kumkum in a small zip lock pouches from what you have at home if you can't find the ones like you get in India. Also I give Apples some clips to the kids and Banana inexpensive gifts haldi Kumkum to the ladies. If my gifts got over I give one dollar in the kumkum. Also for the snacks I do sundal chickpeas or groundnut and give it to the ladies. Also I make sweetpongal as it can be made in big batch and given. For the kids you can buy some caprisun juices and some cookies. You can also make vada as a snack. We don't include onion on the day of pooja so so this what I do. Goodluck with your pooja tomorrow.

prakrutiram · Jul 29, 2012

Thanks dear friends for ur replies.yest i have done pooja and haldi kumkum in evening successfully.

All ur suggestions have really helped me a lot.

rose8282 · Jul 29, 2012

Nice to know it went well. What did you do?

prakrutiram · Aug 12, 2012

Hi rose8282,

Firstly very sorry for late reply..Actually i was nt expecting any reply after my thanku post,so i did nt check.

i am so happy to see reply and even happy to share my varalakshmi vratam day.

i did the pooja and parentam(haldi kumkum) all alone for first time so i am happy that it went well (everytime either i did with my mother or MIL)

Well,that day i made tamrind rice,rice kheer with little chana dal and gud(as i dnt knw to make poorna burelu),boiled chick peas with tempuring,and semiya and subadana kheer for varalakshmi devi in the morning and did nivedanam.

In the evening i served all this items as snacks along with some chips.

and i gave tambulam(beetel leaves,supari,banana,haldi kumkum packed in small packets) and flowers and 1 photo frame as gift.

i got this favor bags and photo frames from a shop called 'Deals' for $ 1.99.

thanks,
prakruti