Calendar door 14: Aysil Emirmahmutoglu
In the fourteenth calendar door of the NHH Employee Calendar 2024 we find Aysil. Learn more about the Turkish way of celebrating New Year's Eve.
Aysil Emirmahmutoglu Pelzl started at the Department of Business and Management Science in 2020.
She grew up in Turkey, a country with Islamic traditions, where they do not traditionally celebrate Christmas. But her end of the year still involved celebration.
‘On New Year’s Eve we would have a special dinner first,’ she explains about her childhood memories.
‘There is no dish that we cook specifically for this day, but it would just be more festive than a regular day. Then we would all sit in front of the TV and watch TV shows that has comedy and lots of singing by famous Turkish singers,’ says Aysil.
As if that is not exciting enough, the climax of the show would be a belly dancer performance usually closer in time to midnight. During all this time, Aysil and her family would eat what is called “cerez” (salty trail mix), desert and fruits.
NHH Employee Calendar 2024
During workdays in December, Paraplyen will present colleagues and their end-of-the-year traditions. In total 15 employees will share their own special traditions.
She also explains how they would play a game that she believes every Turkish family plays on this evening, but only on this evening, called “Tombala” (similar to bingo).
In Turkey it is also very common to buy tickets for this big lottery on New Year’s Eve even if you normally do not. When finally, the New Year comes, the numbers for the big lottery would be drawn on live TV. Aysil’s conclusion is that she and her family (and almost everyone else) would go to bed as poor or rich as they always were. But the tradition still lives on.