Dear Atria,
​
I hope your day is filled with wonderful things. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday.

This year I chose for you something to help you celebrate unforgettable moments, express your individuality and aspire to be better. I hope it will be the start of your own collection of charms celebrating many wonderful life events, experiences and people who love you. The first charm for your bracelet is a reminder that you are and you always will be my daughter, I am your dad and I love you.

I saw that you already collected your gift from the post office in Woking on the 14th of June. I sent it a bit earlier to ensure it reaches you in time for your celebrations. I hope you like it. 
Happy Birthday Atria

Dear Atria,
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
I wish you a very happy Birthday.

Below there are pictures of your Christmas card and present which today at 12.51pm postman attempted to deliver unsuccessfully.
Go to Royal Mail website (Tracking number AF257623564GB) and rearrange a delivery or take the card they left at your address to the local sorting office and collect in person. I hope you get it before Christmas.
Wishing you and your family and friends a wonderful, magical Christmas filled with love, joy and happiness. 
Love from dad :-)
​

Dear Atria,

Your Birthday is approaching soon, so I sent you a card and a birthday gift. I am now in Iran, but I chose what I want to get for you and Anna did the shopping and posting on my behalf. The parcel for you was posted 5 days ago so you can receive it well in time before your Birthday. I hope you will find time to collect it from the Post Office before then. In the meantime I am going to describe the gifts I chose for you.

From the message on the card you already know what are the other gifts. The fist one is 'The Secret', a book (or rather audiobook in this case - I thought you could listen to it on your iPod I got you last year) by Rhonda Byrne. I didn't read or listen to it myself but I checked out the reviews and I thought it is a type of lecture that teaches a positive attitude towards life and conveys good values. 'The Secret' contains wisdom from modern-day teachers - men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. Rhonda Byrne explains that by controlling your thoughts and ensuring that they are of a positive nature, anything, in any aspect of life, is achievable. More specifically, The Secret explains the law of attraction meaning that like things attract, so positive thoughts can create positive outcomes while negative thoughts would create that negative reality.
The book goes on to apply the concept of positivity to health, relationships, abundance, thankfulness, and ultimately life. Indeed the point is to be happy now, feel good now. Joy, love, freedom, happiness, laughter. That’s what it is. That's what I wish you in life. I hope you will enjoy listening to this book and maybe you could tell me about it more?

The secod gift is a book by Lois Blyth called 'The Little Pocket Book of Happiness' which explains how to love life, laugh more and live longer. It's a nice little book packed with great advice, powerful quotations and cute illustrations. I wish you all the happiness in the world and I hope this book will help you to find it.
The review of the book says:
The Little Pocket Book of Happiness offers a more joyous approach to living and thinking; a shift in approach that may reframe your view of the world; simple things you can do to reconsider your life consciously so that you can decide whether now is the time when you can be happier. It includes strategies to warm the heart and open the mind to the extraordinary power of happiness. It shares the experiences of others and provides the closest we might have to a happiness 'formula'. The good news is, happiness is within everyone's grasp.
Below are some picture from the inside of the book so you can have a feel what it is about. I myself saw only the pictures but based on them I really like the book and I hope you will like it too and that it will help you to find more happiness, joy, laughter and love in your life.

And here are all the presents before wrapping and then wrapped. There are also two pairs of socks that Anna thought are very cute and girly, so I hope you will like them. Happy Birthday my Princess! I hope you will have a wonderful day on your Birthday celebrating with friends and family.

Dear Atria,
Today the Birthday present I had for you was passed on to your Mum. Your Mum said that you are in Canada now so I guess you will receive it after you are back. I hope you will like it.
Have a lovely holidays. I've never been to Canada but everyone says it is a very beautiful country, so I hope you're having a wonderful time and will come back with plenty of good memories and experiences.

Dear Atria,
Your grandparents sent you a Christmas card and Christmas wishes.
As they can't sent it to you directly, they have posted it to me, I have taken a picture of the card and their wishes and am putting it below for you to see.
Have a very Merry Christmas

One that I favour to quote is that :- 
"The first person to bring a Christmas Tree into a house, in the way we know it today, may have been the 16th century German preacher Martin Luther. A story is told that, one night before Christmas, he was walking through the forest and looked up to see the stars shining through the tree branches. It was so beautiful, that he went home and told his children that it reminded him of Jesus, who left the stars of heaven to come to earth at Christmas".

One of the main reasons we have the custom of giving and receiving presents at Christmas, is to remind us of the presents given to newborn baby Jesus by the Wise Men: Frankincense, Gold and Myrrh.

• Frankincense was a perfume used in Jewish worship and, as a gift, it showed that people would worship Jesus.
• Gold was associated with Kings and Christians believe that Jesus is the King of Kings.
• Myrrh was a perfume that was put on dead bodies to make them smell nice and, as a gift, it showed that Jesus would suffer and die.

Christmas itself is really about a big present that God gave the world about 2000 years ago - Jesus! One of the most famous Bible verses, John 3:16, says: 'God loved the world so much, that he gave his one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him may not be lost but have eternal life.'.
But still all over the world, families and friends give presents to each other. It is an occasion to treat your loved ones. I bought you couple of present as well and I hope you will like them.

My darling angel, I wish you a  very happy birthday. 

I may not be there to celebrate and share these precious moments of your life with you, but my heart and my thoughts are always with you.

This birthday is to your dad different from all the previous ones, couple of days ago I visited a dear friend (Rahman) whose daughter is only a few month older than you. My vision of you my darling all these years remained as the same little girl as you were when I last saw you. That now have changed, you are no longer the little girl, but a young princess.

I was so glad when I realised how much you must have grown up, and at the same time so sad that I was not allowed to be a part of your life during the transition from childhood to adulthood.

I look forward to the day that you decide for yourself you want your dad to be part of your life again.

No matter how hard and for how long one tries to convince an eagle that she can not fly, eventually the day will come when the eagle comprehends that she is not destined to crawl on the earth and she shall embarks on the journey of life seeking to find the truth for herself.

The eagle will leave her cage and fly to the highest point in sky, then she will look down upon those who were trying to convince her she can not fly, and shall fly through the sky's in seek of the truth and her origins. 

The eagle will persevere her search until she finds the truth for herself and then demands to know why the truth was kept from her for all these years.

Happy Birthday My Darling Atria, I can not even send you a card or a present, but can express my feelings for you.

Your father
Farshid Shenassa
25/06/2012

Dear Atria, I wish you a very happy Nowruz. This Nowruz was even more special for us as Baba your grand dad was with us. He made brought all the things needed for Haft-Sin with him from Iran and prepared our Haft-Sin. Dear Atria, I can not give you materialistic gifts, the gift I can give you is the gift of knowledge which is more valuable and lasts for ever.

nowruz (meaning New Day) is one of the biggest and most celebrated zoroastrian festivals which has been celebrated since over 2500 years ago by Iranian Zoroastrians and many others.

Zoroastrians have a festival to mark the beginning of each of the four season, however, Nowruz is special as it also marks the start of spring when the day and the night equals and life on earth is reborn after winter as well as marking the beginning of the new agricultural year and the start of a new Iranian calendar year.

At Nowruz traditianally Zorastrians make a simbolic table with seven items all starting with persian letter "Shin", after Islam came to Iran this changed to seven seven items starting with letter "Sin" as there is no "Shin" in Arabic alphabet. The most common Hafr-Sin is;

Sabzeh, which is wheat grown in a plate as the simbol of Rebirth
Sir (Garlic) to represent medicine and healing
Somagh (is a dried grated fruit) to represent Sun and Sunrise
Senjed (is a dried fruit) simbolising "Love"
Serkeh (Vinigar) to represent "Old Age"
Sib (Apple) as a simbol of "Purity, Health & Beauty"
Samanu (cooked from Wheat) simbolizing "Wealth"

In addition there are other items on the table each of which symbolizes something sacred. These traditionally are; 

Mirror as a symbol of Sky and Light, 
Rose Water "Golab" to symbolize Water, Purity & Fresh Smell, 
Oil Burner or Candle to represent Fire,
Red Fish or Goldfish to symbolize animals,
Pomegranate to symbolize the Earth,
Eggs (usually painted with "Henna") to represent Fertility

Customarily people spend the new year in their own home, and then for the following 13-days they visit and greet each other, starting with youngers visiting the elders. On the therteenth day it is believed to be unlucky to visit anyone, everybody leave their house and go out for a picnic taking the "Sabzeh" they grew for the Haft-Sin, which they will trow away before returning.
This is the end of the celebration and the Haf-Sin will be cleared away. 

Dear Atria;
 
This year I decided to employ WORDS to help me to celebrate your birthday with you. Words can express feelings more efficiently and time is incapable of changing them. Presents do lack this ability. For example, the Doll House I bought for you six years ago can not bring you the same feelings of joy today. I never had the opportunity to give you that doll house or many of the other presents I bought for you.   
I wish you a happy birthday for you today and wish you health and success for many more years to come. Time succeed to change our appearance but can not change the way we feel inside. Age is the price we all have paid for Maturity and Wisdom, today you are one year wiser one year more mature than at your last birthday.  
Have a happy youth and may there be many happy memories to follow you to your teen. You are only young once, make the most and the best out of it.  

Best wishes with lots of love
from
Your dad on your birthday and always    
Farshid Shenassa 25/06/2011

Dear Atria,
Finally this year's Easter card I sent for you for the second time to Mr Bekhradnia has been delivered to him, so I am sure it will be with you soon. I am very grateful to Mr Bekhradnia for doing this.

I am happy like the old man in this picture :) Only I have just one goat who has whiskers instead of beard and does not baaaa but miau :)

Dear Atria,

I am very disappointed today because the Easter card I've sent you came back to me. I sent it for you over a month ago to Mr Bahram Bekhradnia, your Mum's friend and advocate, who's address your Mum uses for her correspondence. Unfortunately the card has not been delivered as the postman couldn't obtain Mr Bekhradnia's signature and re-delivery has not been arranged. 

Possibly Mr Bekhradnia was on holiday as otherwise he surly would have had collected the card and passed it on to you. I will send it again. I am sorry about the delay and I know that Easter is long gone, but I hope you will understand. It is not about the card but about thinking about the other person and I always think about you and I look forward to the day we will be reunited again.                              
With love - your Dad Farshid

Dearest Atria,
I wish you a happy Easter. 
Harmony and mutual respect are of main elements of friendship and peace, also by respecting beliefs of all religions world peace becomes one step closer. 
Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring equinox and is the oldest and most important Christian festival. 
Easter is held in remembrance of death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, when faith broke the barriers of death. 
Jesus who was crucified on a cross on Good Friday was resurrected on Easter Sunday. A sad story with happy ending.
For those who die in faith, death is merely beginning of a new life. God have provided us many such examples in nature -  a beautiful flower grows from a bulb with no sign of life, a tree from a lifeless seed and a chicken hutches from a motionless egg :)
Hope you have a wonderful Easter :-)

Your dad Farshid

Above you can see Easter eggs we painted ourselves to celebrate Easter. Easter eggs are a thought to be symbol of new life as a chick might hatch from the egg. You can decorate them yourself and then give away to your friends and family as a token of friendship, love or good wishes. Eggs are also used in various Easter games like egg hunt - parents would hide eggs for children to find and children would compete who collected more eggs. We had a little egg hunt in our local Church. Have you taken part in an egg hunt dear Atria?

This is an Easter garden made by children in our local Church. It shows Jesus Christ with Mary Magdalene and two other woman after Jesus has risen from death on Easter Sunday. Jesus died on a Friday afternoon. Friends quickly placed his body in a tomb cut into a rocky hillside and blocked the entrance with a great stone. Guards were sent to secure the tomb. On Sunday, when Mary Magdalene and the other woman were visiting the tomb, they felt a great earthquake. They saw an angel come and roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb. The guards were so frightened that they shook and fainted! The angel told the women not to be afraid, that Jesus was not there for he had risen. This meant that Jesus was alive! The angel told them to go quickly and tell Jesus' friends that he is alive. On their way back suddenly Jesus met them and said  "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, there they will see me". And just as Jesus had promised he rose from the dead on the third day after his death!  Christians celebrate Easter Sunday to remember this important event.

Dear Atria
I wish you a happy Norooz 1390!
Words do not do Justice when are summoned to deliver feelings. Events in life may separate two by distance, but distance shall not separate their hearts.
With love - Your dad Farshid

Norooz is not only the event to celebrate the start of the Persian New Year. Norooz is also to celebrate the start of a new season and birth of a new life cycle in nature as well as being an occasion for all the family members to put aside any and all their differences and unite in peace and harmony.
Norooz is the balance point of nature, is an end to long, cold nights and a start to longer and warmer days.
Traditionally for Norooz we prepare a spiritual table with items, each of which symbolizes a different aspect of life, around which all family members unite waiting for spring equinoxes and the beginning of a new year. 
Norooz celebration lasts for thirteen days, during which we visit and reunite with our family, relatives and friends.
I look forward to the Norooz when we become reunited together.
Happy Norooz 1390.

PS. I have sent you a drawing kit for Norooz (photographs are in the 'Presents' section of this website). I posted it to your Mum's Friend, Mr Bekhradnia so you should receive it this week - I hope you will enjoy it my Dear Atria :-)