Dear friends and family,

I’m writing this from Abu Dhabi, where yesterday (Christmas Day) we gathered around the table: Zahra, the boys, and me, and offered quiet thanks. Nothing fancy. Just us, together, which feels like the real luxury these days. In a year that pulled us across continents and time zones, we kept finding our way back to this: the four of us, under one roof, sharing a meal.

This marks our fifth Christmas in this city we’ve come to love, and if 2025 had one persistent theme, it was distance and return. Boise to Abu Dhabi and back again. Work commitments, school schedules, the constant calculus of where everyone needs to be versus where we want to be. The world feels more crowded every year, more frenetic, and yet somehow we keep choosing each other. That’s not automatic. That’s intentional.

Let me be clear about something: Zahra has been the glue. While I’ve been out chasing falcons and crossing borders, she’s been the steady center, the one who keeps our emotional compass pointing true. She does it without fanfare, which is exactly why it works so beautifully. She’s the reason a family spread across two continents still feels like a family.

Nepal started our year with depth. Zahra and I celebrated our 25th anniversary there, in the shadow of those ancient mountains. Here’s what I’m learning about marriage after a quarter century: it’s built like the best field camps I’ve ever been part of. Steady routines. Shared jokes that make no sense to outsiders. Mutual respect when things get hard. And the wisdom to know when to adapt because, let me tell you, the weather always changes.

Then came Hokkaido in February, delivering a Valentine’s Day I’d dreamed about for years. Under impossibly clear skies, I finally saw the Steller’s sea eagle, massive, ancient-looking, the kind of bird that makes you feel appropriately small. Our dear friends were with us, guided by Taki-san, who reads the landscape like poetry. Red-crowned cranes danced in the snow with that precision the Japanese understand in their bones. And then, just when we thought the island had given us enough, Blakiston’s owl appeared at dusk. That bird has a presence that makes everyone whisper. Hokkaido gifted us wildlife, yes, but also culture, friendship, and meals that felt like acts of devotion.

Madagascar followed with its own particular magic. I called the visit Whispers of the Wind, which turned out to be exactly right. We were at the famous Alley of the Baobabs where these trees rise like ancient monuments. Dragonflies threading through humid air. And the sooty falcon, small and precise, hunting among those massive trees with effortless grace. There was poetry in watching that little raptor work, a master of its craft, perfectly adapted to its world.

But here’s the truth conservation work doesn’t advertise: it’s hot. It’s uncomfortable. Mosquitoes have a personal vendetta against you. It’s long days of tagging and data collection, the unglamorous work of trying to understand how these birds survive their intercontinental journeys. It’s not romantic. It’s devotion. It’s patience, teamwork, and a belief that the future is worth planning for. I’m grateful every single day for the work I do at the Mohamed bin Zayed Raptor Conservation Fund. In a world that feels increasingly chaotic, working to protect these creatures gives me something solid to hold onto.

May delivered pure joy: Kaisaan graduated from the College of Idaho with honors. Watching him step into that milestone was joy, pure and bright, along with that slightly surreal feeling that time has shifted gears while we weren’t looking. Zahra’s brother Faizal visited for the graduation, and we turned it into a proper American welcome tour with a trip to Arches National Park in Utah. Hiking those red rock trails together, seeing Faizal experience that vastness for the first time, felt like sharing a piece of America that doesn’t fit neatly into words.

June took me to the Philippines, to the island of Leyte, where together with our Partners at the Philippine Eagle Foundation, we released a Philippine eagle back into the wild. Standing in that forest, watching that magnificent bird take flight and disappear into the canopy. That’s the moment all the meetings and paperwork and logistics are for. That’s why we do this work.

July brought family in full color. My brother and his family visited Dubai for the Ismaili Games, and Zahra’s brother Faizal and Farheen joined as well. We made the kind of memories that don’t need embellishment: long meals, laughter that carries late into the night, stories retold until they become family legend. It was one of those times that reminds you family is not just who you love, it’s who you can become yourself around.

Later in July, I traveled to Mongolia to work on an exciting film project with my friend Kiran Ghadge, an exceptional filmmaker. We were documenting the legacy of a single saker falcon called X26, a bird whose story reveals so much about migration, survival, and the invisible threads that connect distant landscapes. Mongolia’s vast steppes have a way of putting everything in perspective.

Then came Europe, seven years after we last set foot on that continent. Back then it was Lisbon, alive with music and devotion. This time, we landed in Rome, and I felt that familiar surge of joy mixed with a tremor of trepidation.

Italy gave us heat, crowds, expense, and moments of awe that arrived when we weren’t trying to manufacture them. Rome carried the weight of time. Sitting near the Colosseum, I was struck by the uneasy truth of history: human genius and human cruelty living side by side in stone. Florence offered beauty, but what I treasured most was watching our boys rediscover each other in the closeness of travel, sharing space, laughing in a way that reminded me of who they were before life sped up. Venice was a mirage in the daytime, dazzling and overwhelmed, but at dawn it softened into something quieter and more real.

And yes, Europe also delivered the very specific comedy of traveling with one teen and one ‘just finished teen.’ At that age, they can debate dinner options like food critics and still forget where they put their sunglasses five minutes earlier. Zahra and I perfected the art of calm logistics, snacks on standby, and silent eye contact that says: we love them deeply, and we will survive this.

After Europe, Zahra, Zayan, and Kaisaan returned to Boise. Kaisaan went straight into his summer job, and Zayan headed back to begin his sophomore year at college, stepping back into that world with a little more confidence than last time, and the same healthy appetite for independence. The house in Boise filled with its own rhythm again, while Abu Dhabi quieted down for me, that familiar feeling of loving your family and missing them in the same breath.

Mid-November brought Kaisaan back to Abu Dhabi. We played golf together, not every day, but enough. He’s quiet, reserved, not one for long conversations, and that’s fine. Sometimes just being in the same space is enough. Walking the course side by side, that’s its own kind of communion.

Then, late November, just the two of us headed to Krabi. No schedules beyond the tide and the next meal, no rush, no performance. Simply time, which turns out to be the rarest commodity we have. One morning I watched an osprey hunt at the wastewater ponds near our hotel. It circled, patient and focused, then committed to the dive. Watching that bird work, adjusting, trying again when it missed, succeeding on its own terms, I couldn’t help but think of Kaisaan. He’s learning to hunt too, not for fish but for his place in this crowded, chaotic world. He’ll dive and miss sometimes, then circle back and try again. Our job now isn’t to teach him how. It’s to watch from the shore, to trust he’s ready, and to be there when he needs to rest.

Then, as December arrived, Zahra and Zayan returned straight from Boise, and we were whole again. All four of us, gathered back around the same table.

Here’s what I’m learning as another year closes: gratitude isn’t something you wait to feel when life slows down. It’s a practice. You choose it daily, especially when the world is moving too fast and feels too full, because it steadies your heart. I’m grateful for work that matters, for friends and family we can reach out to across distances, for the moments we steal back from busy schedules to simply be together.

The world is a little crazy right now. It’s crowded and loud and sometimes overwhelming. But here’s what hasn’t changed: the people you love still matter most. The table you gather around matters. The conversations that happen in the margins, those matter too.

From our home to yours, we wish you health, peace, and a new year filled with good people and meaningful moments. May you find yourself at a table with those you love. May you laugh often, even when things feel heavy. And may you remember, as we try to remember, that the whispers of the wind are invitations to look up once in a while and notice what’s beautiful.

With love, gratitude, and hope,

The Viranis

Munir (writing for Zahra, Kaisaan, and Zayan)

Abu Dhabi, December 2025