Sallah 2026 is Days Away: The Home Checklist Most People Forget Until It’s Too Late

Eid al-Adha falls on Wednesday, May 27 this year. If you’re hosting family, sacrificing a ram, cooking for visitors, or just trying to keep the house running smoothly through a four-day celebration, you have about a week to sort out the things that always become a problem on Sallah morning.

This isn’t a list of fancy upgrades. It’s the boring stuff that breaks the day when you skip it — and the items that consistently sell out in the last 72 hours before the holiday.

The kitchen items that disappear first

Every Sallah, the same products run low at major markets and online: gas cylinders, large pots, freezer-safe containers, knives, and grinders. By Saturday before the holiday, prices on these jump. By Tuesday, the good ones are gone.

If you’re hosting more than 10 people, take stock of:

A large cooking pot. A 30-liter aluminum pot handles jollof for a crowd in one batch. Trying to cook the same quantity in two rounds of a smaller pot doubles your gas use and ruins the rice texture on the second batch. Sizes that move fastest before Sallah: 25L, 30L, and 40L.

A sharp, properly weighted knife. Most home knives are not sharp enough to butcher ram parts cleanly. You don’t need a professional set — one good 8-inch chef’s knife or a butchering knife handles everything. A blunt knife is the single biggest reason people get cut on Sallah day.

Freezer containers and food bags. A ram produces 25-40kg of meat depending on size. Even after you give a third to neighbours and a third to family, the third you keep needs to be portioned and stored properly or it spoils within a week. Stock up on heavy-duty freezer bags and stackable airtight containers before the rush.

Blenders or grinders for spices. Pre-ground pepper from the market loses flavour fast. Most serious cooks grind fresh on Sallah morning. If your blender struggles with dry pepper or has a cracked jar, replace it now — Wednesday morning is not the time to discover it’s broken.

Gas cylinders, refills, and regulators. Gas suppliers get overwhelmed in the 48 hours before Sallah. If your cylinder is below half, refill this weekend. If you’ve been ignoring a slow leak at the regulator, fix it before you have a kitchen full of guests.

The cooling and storage problem

Sallah falls in late May this year — the rainy season is starting, but the heat is still serious. Power supply over the holiday is almost always worse than usual because every household is running heavier loads.

The two questions to answer before Tuesday night:

Where will the meat go? A standard chest freezer can hold the meat from half a ram with room for other things. A small upright freezer fills up fast. If your freezer is already full of frozen foods you bought last month, eat them down this week or you’ll be giving meat away you didn’t plan to give away.

What’s your backup power plan? Whatever you normally use to keep things running during outages — generator, inverter, solar — make sure it actually works before Tuesday. The number of people who discover their generator won’t start on Sallah morning, with raw meat in a defrosting freezer, is depressingly consistent every year.

If you don’t have any backup at all and you’re hosting, this is the week to at least sort out a small inverter and battery setup that can keep the freezer running for a few hours during outages. A 1kVA inverter with one battery handles a chest freezer for 4-6 hours and costs a fraction of what you’d lose if the meat spoils.

Entertaining the house without losing your mind

Most Sallah hosting problems come down to three things: not enough seating, not enough plates and cups, and the house feeling too hot.

Plates, cups, and serving dishes. Count the maximum number of people you might have in your house at once across the four days. Most homes don’t have enough plates and end up washing throughout the day. Disposable plates feel wasteful but make sense for the big crowd on day one. Real plates for family on day two and three.

Fans, AC, and air circulation. If you have a ceiling fan that’s been wobbling for six months, this is the week to either fix it or replace it. A standing fan in the parlour where guests sit is non-negotiable if your AC can’t handle the room or you’re running on generator. Rechargeable fans are useful when power goes — they’re inexpensive and they last 6-8 hours per charge.

Lighting. If any bulbs in the guest-facing rooms have been out, replace them this weekend. LED bulbs are cheaper than they were two years ago and use far less power, which matters when you’re running on backup. Rechargeable lanterns for outages.

Sound. A small Bluetooth speaker matters more than people admit. The house feels flat without music. If yours has been crackling, replace it now — not on Sallah morning when every electronics shop is shut.

The boring electrical stuff that ruins the day

These items don’t feel exciting until they fail:

• Extension boxes (especially the ones with surge protection — important when generators are switching on and off)
• Bulb holders for the lights you only turn on when guests visit
• Door locks and gate locks (people lose keys; visitors arrive at all hours)
• Phone chargers — at least two extras, because someone always borrows one and doesn’t return it
• Power banks for when the power is out and people still need to take photos

A ₦5,000 extension box can save you from a tangled mess of phones charging on the floor while ten people argue about whose phone has the lowest battery.

What to buy now vs what to buy on Monday

Buy this weekend (Saturday/Sunday):

• Anything heavy or bulky (pots, freezers, fans, gas cylinders)
• Anything that needs delivery (most platforms slow down by Tuesday)
• Anything that needs installation or testing (inverters, ACs, freezers)
• Gas refills

Buy by Monday:

• Plates, cups, serving dishes
• Knives, peelers, grinders
• Disposable items
• Lightbulbs and small electrical
• Power banks, chargers, batteries

Last-minute on Tuesday is fine for:

• Fresh ingredients you couldn’t store earlier
• Last-minute small items you forgot

Do not leave for Tuesday or Wednesday:

• Anything requiring delivery
• Anything requiring installation
• Replacement of broken appliances

Delivery windows tighten dramatically the day before a major holiday. Markets are crowded, prices are inflated, and the items you actually need are picked over.

One more thing about generators

If you run a generator over Sallah, three quick things:

Service it this weekend if you haven’t in the last 3 months. Top up the oil. Check that you have at least 48 hours’ worth of fuel stored safely — not because there will be scarcity, but because nobody wants to be queuing at a filling station on Sallah morning when guests are arriving.

Sallah hosts who plan a week ahead enjoy the holiday. Sallah hosts who plan on Tuesday evening spend half of Wednesday running errands they could have avoided.

The list above is everything that breaks if you ignore it. Sort it now.