Happy 35th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Mirza Clan 2013, 2 parents 5 daughters 4 son in laws and 10 grand kids. Mash' Allah

My sisters and I threw our parents a surprise 35^th anniversary party earlier this month. The thing with surprises in our family is that all five of us sisters majorly suck at them! We are very close to our mom and speak with her almost daily, which made hiding the whole planning/prep of this party a huge task. We also rely on her immensely to advise us whenever we’re doing a big event, so the lack of her guidance was definitely felt. “How many paper cups do we need? Are two trays of biryani plenty? Should we buy back up naan in case the caterers don’t provide enough? Where is soda on sale?” These are all questions Mama Mirza would have a simple answer to. So, we struggled without her a bit, but in the end we pulled it off and they were both surprised and very proud. Goal Accomplished.

Planning an anniversary party for your parents:

Set a budget and begin brainstorming early

It makes it easy to know what you can and cannot do if you know how much you plan to spend. We had a decent size budget since all 5 of us were pitching in, but still we began planning for the party about 6 months beforehand, simply because four of us are working moms and living in different states so it was a lot of late night group IChat’s where we’d hash out details. Once we were all on the same page about how much each person can contribute we were able to figure out quickly how the costs would be divided up.

 

Book the hall

The most important task to get out of the way for a big event is to set a date and book the hall. We shopped around in our area for nice places. We spoke with fancy banquet halls and also local VFW halls. In the end we decided it was best for our budget to stick with a local VFW hall where we could spend more on décor, cake, food, and entertainment. Make sure to start calling places at least a month in advance, especially if your event is around a holiday because most halls, especially nice ones, are booked up quickly.

Book the Caterer

Again this was tough without mom since she’s always the one to know which caterer makes the best nihari and which now charges too high a rate. It took a few phone calls, but we got a good deal at Nawab Grill and ended up having a great amount of food that our guests really loved too.

Our menu was: Chicken Biryani, beef Nihari, Baghare Bangan, Chicken 65, Naan, Salad, Raita, Ras Malai all for $750 which was more than plenty to feed 100 guests. 

Invite your guests

I’ve used Paperless Post in the past for my son’s birthday party. Read here how I feel about the website. I really love their designs and again, we found one that was elegant yet simple and it went nicely with our theme! 

There was supposed to be another tier of pom poms at the top, I got lazy.

Party Décor 

This is where your budget can go out of hand since it’s all about how extravagant or simplistic you want to be. Nothing a few trips to the dollar store, amazing savings and Costco along with a creative mind can’t solve though. My little sister was in charge of this area for our party and she did a wonderful job. We had an elegant theme of Grey & Coral Pink for the party. We made the centerpieces at home along with the banner found via free download here.  Mariam created these great programs to place at each table with a love quote on the cover. I loved the Mr. & Mrs. sign for their chairs but we just didn't have time to put together the ribbon, so we stuck it on the door where they entered from and it ended up being a cute addition!

 Order the Cake

This was my first time working with Piece of Cake by Saba Mendha. She did a great job bringing my ideas to life. I wanted a simple white cake with a thin grey ribbon on each tier and a big coral colored flower on top with some stylish yet simple piping work one each tier. She did just that. We had one layer vanilla with fresh strawberries and another with chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. Both cakes tasted great! My only critique would be that I imagined the flower being larger than it turned out, since it was the only ‘pop’ part of the cake I wish it was a bit bigger. Also, the piping work wasn’t totally clean, but I understand that she’s still a new cake artist and it wasn’t a big deal to me. Taste and look overall were great. She was on time with delivery and very open to my ideas for the cake design. I loved her professionalism and great taste of the cake! 

Write a Speech

This was tough because I’m a sap. Also, I never have a spare moment to collect my thoughts. I would start thinking of things on my drives to work but usually I’d be a mess of tears by the time I got to my desk. So it took some time, and some Googling of wedding speeches, which I found were all quite useless. So here, use mine and put your own creative liberties on it, I’m glad to help since Google, for once, was inept:

Sab se pehle mein kehna chahoungi ke aap saab humare ammi aur abu ke aziz dost aur rishtedaron mein se hain, aur humme bahaut khushi hai ke aap unki zindagi ke iss ehem din ko celebrate karne mein humare saath shamil hosake. Humari dua hai ke Allah tala ammi abu ko 35 aur khushiyon bhaare saal ata farmein. 

 “Firstly, I would like to say thank you to all our guests. You all are mom and dad’s most dear friends and relatives and we are very happy that you are able to join us in celebrating this special day in their lives where we honor their marriage. We wish that God grants our mom and dad with 35 more years filled with happiness.” 

Abu and Ammi, your marriage has always been an excellent example for us five, in every aspect of life. Every child thinks their parents are the best, but the real truth, sorry to tell the rest of you, is that my parents truly are the best. You two have taught us many lessons through our lives. But the most important one you taught us is that it is your ikhlaq, manner, generosity, your ability to be a good friend and a helpful neighbor that makes one a better person. And you both have shown us that a big part of being a better person means to be an ideal spouse. A spouse who shows respect in public and in private, who cares for not just one another but for each other’s families. Seeing the amount of patience you both have had in the past 35 years with all the situations that life put you through is what inspires me when I know I’m losing my patience! 

Mom, to us you are the ideal woman. We call you a Spartan because you are a warrior. You are the ideal standard by which we measure all our life goals. I cannot imagine the difficulties you went through coming into this new country without your family and very few familiar faces. But you did a great job at everything that came your way. you raised 5 children, worked full time, had numerous house guests and random visitors popping over all the time and never once did I see you struggle. I only saw you open your doors and your heart to others, you always told us that Allah puts barqat (blessing) in a home that has its door open for loved ones and that no situation is difficult if you keep in mind the blessing that come with it.  

Dad, you are our hero. It’s true that every girl’s first love is their father and I can speak for all five of us when I say you are definitely ours. You have an unending amount of patience and love to offer us. You have taught us what it means to be an excellent son, father and husband.  

I have learned from seeing you both that no human and no marriage is perfect, only Allah is perfect. But Allah (SWT) gives us a spouse to complete us so that their strengths make up for our shortcomings, and together we are whole. We pray to always see you two being whole together with a long and healthy life iA. 

we gift wrapped as shoebox and had paper/pens for guests to write down memories for our parents to read later on as a keepsake from the party.

Prepare a Slideshow

Everyone loves looking at old pictures of themselves in the '70s with crazy hairdos and stylish bell bottoms. Just don't go crazy, remember that people can just browse at a lot of these pics on a Facebook album too so keep it short sweet and add some sappy songs to pile on the nostalgia.

My happy child in front of the Slideshow area

Cake cutting

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Father's Day

So I was thinking about what to get my Dad for Father's Day and it lead to this:


It's natural for children to be close and drawn towards their mothers. Moms are nurturing, they're the ones we spend more time with, they scold us comfort us and basically teach us how to live life. All throughout history there is countless poetry and much literature around the bond shared by mothers and their children. What I find scarce is the topic of Fathers. Women are expressive and open about how they feel. They shower you with their love minutes after they scold you for something. Men in general are hesitant to voice their emotions, but it does not in the slightest way mean that they are void of them. Fathers, as I grow up I realize, may appear to have a more subtle role but the magnitude of it is indescribable.


 In my own life, the role played by my father is enormous. Outwardly my dad was like most fathers during our childhood. He wasn't the diaper changing, helping out with feeding time type of dad. He worked hard to earn an honest living and support a large family, just like all good fathers did. He did play with us and was always loving, but he wasn't involved in our day to day life like mom was. And it made sense, dads generally weren't as hands on at the time also we were 5 girls so naturally we were more inclined towards mom. But this is the point where he stopped being like the traditional 80's father. Everything else set him apart from every man I knew (still know). 


He has taught us so many lessons consciously and unconsciously. One of the few things I heard him repeat many times throughout my childhood was "God may not have given me great wealth or a big name or even siblings to call my own blood, but he gave me five daughters. You five are my pride, my honor, my strength. You are all I have." And he truly meant it. Never once in all my life did I hear him show regret for not having a son. Many other people sure did express it, they even tried to console him about the fact, but he always believed so firmly that God gave him what was best. The way he treated all the women in his life with so much love and respect it taught us how a man should behave. His relationship with his mother, his wife, his daughters he dealt each of them with such perfection. Facing the pressure of all these responsibilities cannot be an easy feat for anyone, but I believe it has made him a much better man than anyone I know. 


Abu gave to us which many fathers I think sometimes don't do with their young children is the comfort of being able to talk to him frankly. He made an honest effort as we grew up to discuss problems in our lives, to guide us and encourage us and to make us see the bigger picture. When faced with big decisions and even big problems which affected our family Abu included us all. At the dinner table all of our words were given the freedom to be expressed no matter how small in size we were. 


Growing up what I admire most about him was his level headedness, how he always takes an objective view. Even when trying to disciple us, he would discuss the issue so logically that we could not really argue against it. He wasn't about scolding us, he left that to mom. Mom was the one who challenged us to get As if we brought home Bs or who suggested to each one of us to pursue a sensible career like medicine.(none of us did ha). Dad did support her in all those views, but his teaching was more geared at telling us to not just achieve success but be better people and to work hard and achieve our goals no matter how much we struggle and even if we fail it would not take away from our efforts. 


My Abu's biggest encouragement was to constantly improve ourselves to be a better human. Not just a good Muslim, not a good wife not a good daughter but a good person. He always says if you keep your intentions honest (achi niyat) and your heart pure (saaf dil) becoming all those other things will be inevitable. He constantly emphasizes the importance of being honest and humble. Of course like all parents he is proud of us when we excel in our careers and profession, but he always reminds us that worldly gains hold no value when measured against strong character. His biggest encouragement is to be someone with a kind heart.  Even when faced with some very ugly hearted people in life, he remained rational and sought the good in them. People who hurt and betrayed him he still continued to be kind to. To me this has been highly commendable. He always says that the Nabi (salallah hu alahi walahi wasalam) before bringing Islam was a good person. People trusted him and loved him for his honesty, sincerity, humanity, and generosity before they followed his teachings as a prophet. The message he brought is remembered because of his nature and how he presented this message. Of course I always saw my father pray 5 times a day, but he never enforced anything upon us, not namaz, Quran, nor hijab. His only major rule was modesty. What I learned from my father and his relationship with God was when you love in such a manner, pleasing your Love becomes your purpose of existence. Ritualistic practices are a means to express this love and devotion. 


My father may not be a man who I can boast about of having a highly successful career or tons of wealth and fame, He did not build great monuments that the world can remember him by or do anything spectacular that the world may praise him. But I can say that the people he has touched, respect and value him greatly. The remarkable things he has done for his family his future generations will always be indebted to him for. He raised 5 daughters with utmost love, care and compassion. I remember when we came to find that my sister's former husband had physically abused her, it was the first time I ever heard him shout so loudly at anyone. "How could you even raise a finger on my pure and virtuous daughter who I nurtured like a gentle flower to never let light wind even harm?" Those words made me cry a lot, because of how much truth they held. After that experience the way he stood by my sister and became her pillar of support he taught us again to be strong, to never let anyone else try to break us if they felt intimidated by our inner strength. My dad taught me that a strong man worthy of respect is one who has many emotions, but does not use physical might to express that strength. He shows it by coping with those emotions with maturity and patience (sabr). 

I love my father for all the things he has taught me are invaluable. He has his flaws, as all mankind does. But the way he has lead his life, and the way he has taught us to lead ours is so admirable to me he is a true living role model. People who don't know him well come to think he is not a man of strong nature. Some have even gone as far as to say my mother is more dominant than him. What they do not know about him is how his soft and scarcely spoken words hold so much more power to those who care about him. How my mother may have shouted at us when we did wrong as children, but when our father merely looked at us with disappointment it hurt much more. He did not need words for us to feel that. Because he loved us so dearly, even the slightest of his disapproval was agonizing.  His love and approval was our strength. The strength we needed to go out and face this world. To know that regardless of what gender we are it is our character and good intentions which will lead us to achieving great things. 

  

I love you, Abu. You are my Pillar of Strength, my Mentor, my Inspiration, and my Friend.