We are thrilled to be celebrating our first Chinese New Year with our little miss. I absolutely love holidays and traditions, so I have had a lot of fun getting ready for such a special holiday.
Chinese New Year, or Chinese Lunar New Year, is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is a 15-day celebration, beginning on the new moon on the first day of the New Year and it ends on the full moon 15 days later. This year is the year of the rabbit. New Year has been celebrated in China for over 5,000 years!
There are many traditions that are followed for Chinese New Year. Gifts of "lucky money" are presented in small red envelopes, called hongbao (literally means red packet or red pouch) and are given as special presents to children by older relatives and friends. Red is considered to be a lucky color and will bring good luck to the person receiving the present. It is also the tradition that every family thoroughly cleans the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity". On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will include such items as pigs, ducks, chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive their money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is to reconcile, forget all grudges and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone.
In our household we have put together our red envelopes to give to friends, we have decorated the house and we have cleaned, to sweep away bad luck. Maelyn will wear her traditional Chinese dress and we will share some sweets that we purchased at the Chinese market. This weekend we are getting together with a few of the families from our travel group and we have a dinner planned at the Mandarin.
We consider ourselves fortunate to be able to learn about our daughter's culture and to begin to integrate it into our family traditions. Xin nian kuai le (Happy New Year) and nian nian you yu (wishing you prosperity every year) to all of our family and friends.
This year's hong bao
Maelyn in her dress this past summer...
1 comment:
What a lovely post -- thinking about you all as you celebrate and decorate. good times and good traditions. Great way to break up the winter blahs.
Maelyn looks lovely in her dress -- so proud.
Happy to share this time with you.
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