Gung hay fat choy!

May You Prosper!

Happy Chinese New Year

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year. In an effort to honor Claire's Chinese heritage we have planned to celebrate the major Chinese holidays with her each year. Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, is the most important of those holidays. It grew out of ancient celebrations marking the end of winter and beginning of spring. The celebration dates are based on the Lunar calendar and begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice. It lasts 15 days until the full moon. This year it begins today, January 26th!

Year of the Ox

Ancient legend holds that Buddha called all the animals on Earth, but only twelve came: the rat, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep, the monkey, the rooster, the dog, and the pig. To reward them, Buddha gave each animal a year to represent in a cycle. This is the year of the ox! The ox is said to be steadfast, loyal dependable, honest and strong. I don't know any oxes........so I can't really say! However, anyone born in the year of the ox will supposedly resemble these traits. Not bad!

To celebrate, we decided to join in the festivities with our local Chinese Association. Yesterday they held a nice New Years Eve party at a local school. There was dancing, singing, food and....door prizes (I'll get back to you about that)!

We got there a little after the activity had started, but just in time to see the very important Lion Dance! The Lion came from the back of the room, where we were, right past us, and up to the front. Claire was mesmerized by it and not at all scared.

Here, she and Lizzie are watching as the Lion passes by us!

Yep, there he goes!


Coming right at us!

Isabel and Claire wore their traditional Chinese clothing. So pretty. But, Claire was a little tired, it's nap time, and was not going to smile for any pictures. That included when the guy from the paper wanted to get a shot of her eating her oranges.....she ate, but no cute expression on her face. Oh well!

Noah, Parker and Lizzie....ready to go but being good sports!

Now, about those door prizes....we each got a ticket when we walked in the door. The door prizes were given out towards the end, and we were just getting ready to bolt over to Bessingers BBQ when they decided to start calling ticket numbers (can we just say that the food at the buffet was not the kind of Chinese we are used to!) The door prizes turned out to be anything a sponsor had donated. Among the coveted (and I use that term loosely) items, my favorite was the shower liners....with Spanish words on the them???! Unfortunately for us, our middle kids have this thing about door prizes. First, it doesn't matter if the prize is a shower liner, our kids feel validated if they win anything that's being given away! Second, one of them almost always wins something...I don't know what it is about my kids. And, if we go somewhere where they are choosing kids to be in the act...my kids are magnets for this stuff! Okay, Okay, it was me that ended up riding a tricycle with a velcro jacket on while kids threw velcro balls at me at Universal Studios 9 years ago, but we can discuss that later! Back to the door prizes.....Paul and I tried to round up the kids and leave.....Lizzie even begged them, but they were having no part of it.....because we are homeschoolers and we value free stuff....and shower liners with Spanish words on it could be a whole school lesson, people! Just when Lizzie had bribed the kids with candy and we were heading out the door, Isabel's number was called and she raced to the stage to receive her prize!

A man's size shirt of some kind made with "digital ink"...whatever that is! Yes, she was actually thrilled with this. She wore it home over her silk outfit, wore it to bed last night and came down stairs with it over her shirt this morning! Great. Just what I needed. Hey, at least it's not a shower liner!