Navarathri Golu Memories_ Over the years!! Part- 2

In this post am sharing some creative stuffs we did for decorating our golu. 

The picture below features our handmade Mayura Velan Temple, built entirely using my kids’ play blocks. I drew inspiration from the stunning temple setups at Chokhi Dhani. It was such a fun family project and added a playful yet traditional touch to our display.

In front right side green and orange Tanjore dancing dolls in plastic 

Flower shop and vilakku shop in front of temple 

This is my dream set up I did by arranging carton box and covered with mountain colour sheets, later using carton box sides painted i inserted black painted tooth picks to form a compound wall like structure.steos i prepared using paper.

In the above picture u can see close up darshan of Lord Ganesha. I have created prasadam stall, coconut breaking place, Chappal stand place and kizha pillaiyar Kovil with small temple entrance 

Circus tent and rockfort temple set up

For circus tent I used chart paper and painted and pasted on a card board box to make a tent look and placed trapeze artist and circus play set inside. That was very nice to see overall.

Below park is a miniature model of our apartment park ( all our golu visitor said so) 

My kids never touched or took any dolls from the golu display, even though I used many of their play toys. It seemed that they understood that golu was a sacred part of our tradition.Their calm respect and enthusiasm during those times made me feel really happy.

Moments like these will always hold a special place in my life.They serve as a reminder of our childhood innocence and a strong connection to our traditions.

🌿Roots and Reflections - Our Garden journal 2025

We started our Garden February 2024 on my Elder son's Birthday. Below is a picture after 6 months.

Later it looked like below and we added a banana plant given by our neighbour.

This Jan 2025 👇

Flowers and vegetables from our garden

Lady's finger, cluster beans,bitterguard, cucumber 

Red Rose

Orange colour hibiscus 

Flowers from our garden 

pink bahunia first bloom 

Flowers from our Garden 

Birds nest on our Pavazhamalli Tree

Our First "vazhai thar" on July 10 2025

We enjoyed banana flower harvest, it was very tasty and so fresh....Our second one gave vazhai thar on Sep 26th 2025. We yet to harvest bananas of both. Below is the collage of our home made recipe of Vazhaipoo vada and dhal kootu. Usually the banana flower florets, we get from shop colour will change if we don't put in water(buttermilk) but our Garden yield banana flower florets remained fresh for hours.

Our Garden visitor 👇

As it is rainy season now we recently cleaned up our Garden weeds and trimmed bahunia and Pavazhamalli branches.