TEHRAN, March 3 (Mehr News Agency) -- The Children of Isfahan will be welcoming in the Iranian New Year, the renewal of nature and the greenness of spring by painting eggs with colorful designs depicting their hopes and dreams.

Isfahan's department for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults is organizing the egg-painting festival and has invited Isfahani children to submit their decorated eggs to Library No.10 of the department on March 6.

The department will select and announce the winners during a celebration on March 9 concurrently with national tree-planting day. The celebration has been organized to make children think about the natural environment and encourage them to protect it.

The delightful tradition of painting eggs before Norouz (the celebration of Iranian New Year beginning on March 21st) and adding them to the Haft Seen ritual table setting or decoration was kept up until recently. The colorful eggs were given to children visiting their relatives' houses.

The Haft Seen decoration includes seven items that begin with the Persian letter "seen" which is pronounced in the same way as "s" in English. They include sib (apple), samanu (a sweet made from wheat seedlings), seer (garlic), sekkeh (coins), sumac (a spice), serkeh (vinegar) and sabzeh (green sprouted seeds).

... Payvand News - 03/03/08 ... --