It is Christmas now and everybody is crazy about it, exactly like when we were kids and just before the new year, Shab e Eid. One thing that our kids miss for sure here (abroad, out of Iran) is the notion of extended family and the related new year celebrations, They neither belong to the mainstream Americans or Canadians nor to Iran. Something in between, as a parent it is too difficult to manage that, since we are not offering our kid a proper and adequate excitement for Norouz (it won't be the same anyways since you won't have the holidays and the big family), I am giving in to Christmas, at least he will have some excitement every year, same time as anybody else.

I don’t believe in any religion as they are presently around, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I believe in something, I don’t know what it is yet; I won’t try to explain it, I’ll wait till the understanding comes to me or if not I am just happy to know there is something even though I can not characterize it.

The other day my son came home with an artwork from school, which was the famous sign of Judaism the candleholder, because of Hanukah, which is around Christmas time. There is one Jewish (he is from Iranian background as well) student in his class. I did not like that; I understand the Christmas fever because of its festival value and the fact that the absolute majority of Americans are Christian, but why Hanukah should semi officially be celebrated in a place where people try to mention religions as rarely as possible?

Another strange thing was that because of the presence of a Jewish skater called Sasha Cohen in some school in California, in order to not offend her, kids did not song the Christmas carol!

That does not make sense to me, this way after a few decades you will see Hanukah as the official new year celebration in US and in order not to offend Americans with Jewish background, Christmas will be banned.