Home of the Four Trans

Lunar New Year happened to fall on Valentine’s Day this year which made celebrating both holidays even more eventful. Not only did Loi and I have to prepare for the New Year by doing the traditional cleaning, hair cutting, gift buying, house decorating, and red envelope stuffing, we also had to squeeze in a bit of Valentine love for our boys and ourselves.

I’m a traditional type of girl so I try to instill what I know of our cultural traditions in the boys as well.  I made sure to buy the festive yellow cherry blossoms and yellow mums to decorate the house with, and adorned those with red li xi bags. I wrapped gifts for each of my boys with red cellophane to signify “good luck” (though I don’t believe in it. It’s become more of a tradition); Nathan got a box of Oreos, Yan-Yan cookies, strawberry candy, and chocolate filled panda shaped cookies; Justin’s bag was filled with the same, except for the Oreos he received peachy gummies. I think the boys got more sweets from me than they’ve eaten in their lifetime! But, they enjoyed opening their gifts, though they did not eat all its contents. Loi’s bag was filled with melon seeds, dried squid, and cuttlefish (we don’t usually snack on these, so it was a treat!).

My favorite part of Lunar New Year is dressing my kids in the traditional Chinese and/or Vietnamese clothing. They always look so handsome and fancy in it. We took their annual New Year photo to share with family and friends.

On the morning of February 14th, I woke up early to make the boys’ Valentine cards, breakfast, and cupcakes. I had slow cooked cranberry and blueberry oatmeal (inspired by Jamba Juice’s recipe) the night before, also. When they woke up, I allowed them to open their presents and read their cards while Loi snapped away. The boys then had their meal of pancakes while Loi and I had oatmeal and eggs– simple but satisfying. After breakfast, we all played a few games of the lucky crab game. Justin’s favorite item to bet on was the crab. He was quite the gambler and even bet all his money on the crab at once several times throughout the game. Of course, he wasn’t fortunate enough to win, so Loi (the dealer) gave him some money to continue playing. Nathan didn’t have a technique, but bet randomly, and seemed to do well. He really enjoyed the game!

After our morning festivities, we all got dressed to visit my Grandma for our annual party at my uncle’s house.

This year, many of our extended family attended; cousins, aunts, and uncles that I hadn’t seen for years were there. The kids played fooseball, Justin showed off his walking, I talked with my cousins, we ate a ton of food. The purpose of the celebration, though, was for my grandma. Each of her children with their families wished my Grandma a prosperous New Year and gave her their blessings. She had seven of her children there and one godchild plus all their families. It was a full house! The highlight of the day for the children was receiving li xi, red bags filled with money. Both Nathan and Justin enjoyed collecting, then gave it all to me because they weren’t sure what to do with it afterwards. Nathan was excited with the fact that he had a lot of money so as to buy more toys with!

The festivities continued until Monday with Loi’s family. We had a family meal consisting of the traditional lucky pork leg and many other items. The children received li xi. I allowed Nathan to use one of his li xi of five dollars to buy a toy at Rite Aid after dinner; he bought two hot wheels of course, and still had “lots of money” leftover, like 1 dollar and some cents.

As it goes every year, the children learn more and more about the traditions and learn to appreciate and understand it, which in turn allow them to enjoy it. Putting on the outfits is not something Mommy makes them do, but something they like to do; I think they like showing off their cuteness. Going to my Grandma’s house and wishing her well has always been a tradition since I was a kid, but with her growing older, it will not be a growing tradition for my kids. However, I’m grateful for the fact that they are able to meet and know her as they have.

Happy New Year, my friends and family!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.