You may be wondering what is exactly is Diwali? It's a festival celebrated in India, it's the biggest festival, similar to Christmas in Australia in terms of prominence in the calendar. Traditionally, Hindu's, Jains and Sikh's celebrate Dewali, but it's part of life for most people as there are holidays and parties where everyone is invited. Diwali is sometimes called Deepavali and it comes from the Sanskit word which means "a series of lights". The photo below is Kristen lighting fireworks out the front of our apartment in Bangalore in 2013 a few weeks before our wedding. 

Generally Diwali goes for 5 days and includes eating special food, getting together with friends and family, bursting fireworks and having parties. 

When I lived in India every year I was invited to a few Diwali parties with food and fire works which was so much much fun, especially as fire works are illegal in Australia, so I had never experienced lighting them before. My school used to have a great Diwali party where we all wore traditional outfits and did our best to wear a sari. I never did learn how to drape a sari myself though, that one is still on my bucket list. When i first started dating my now husband he was invited to our school Diwali party. I was very surprised that we had to go shopping for an outfit for him as he didn’t have any traditional Indian outfits since he’s Anglo-Indian.