What is Sizdeh Bedar?

Sizdeh Bedar (سیزده‌بدر, 'thirteen to the outside') falls on the thirteenth day of Nowruz, which is Farvardin 13 on the Persian calendar — Nature Day in modern Iran, and the official end of the new year holiday season. The logic is elegantly superstition-proof: thirteen is an unlucky number, so you don't fight it, you outsmart it by simply not being inside. Every Iranian family packs food, blankets, a volleyball or a frisbee, and the sabzeh — the sprouted wheat or lentil greens that sat on the Haft-Sin table for the past two weeks — and goes outside. The sabzeh has absorbed all the household's bad luck during Nowruz, and now you throw it in a river or flowing water, releasing that accumulated misfortune back into the world. It's recycling bad luck.

Sizdeh Bedar picnics are famously, gloriously chaotic. Imagine every Persian family in your city all converging on the same parks on the same day, all with the same idea about which spot is best, all with enough food for thirty people even though only twelve came. Ash and ghormeh sabzi simmering in pots at 11 AM, kids chasing each other, elders finding shade immediately and not moving from it, someone's uncle producing a daf drum from the trunk of his car. There is also a tradition for young unmarried women to tie knots in the sabzeh before throwing it in the water, as a wish for a husband — a tradition that gets alternately maintained earnestly, performed ironically, and skipped entirely depending on the generation.