This was our 1st year celebrating Chinese New Year on our own. We normally just celebrate with our local FCC group, but got to thinking maybe our families would like to celebrate with us.
I think it went pretty well. We may change a few things for next year, but all-in-all in went pretty smooth.
We started with dragon scratching. The kids really enjoyed this activity, and we ended up with some pretty creative dragons.
Then we ate dinner. Everyone brought a dish for all to enjoy. We had crab rangoon, egg rolls, wonton soup, chicken & broccoli, beef & broccoli, shrimp lo mein, fried rice, Chinese style chicken wings, Chinese cole slaw, fortune cookies & chocolate cake. Everything was really good!
(unfortunately Kalia wasn’t feeling well at all! This is how she spent pretty much the entire night.)
After dinner my sister read a couple stories about Chinese New Year to the kids. We read Lanterns & Firecrackers by Jonny Zucker & Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin (both were wonderful!). I think the kids enjoyed learning a little more about how the Chinese celebrate.
Next up was another craft…this time we made lanterns. These were a little tricky for the kids (and some of the adults), but we finally got the hang of it
The last 2 things we did were the favorites, I think. We wanted to end the night with firecrackers…and rid our house of all the bad luck. Since we had no access to real firecrackers, we improvised & used bubble wrap. The kids (and adults) LOVED it!
We ended the night with handing out hong bao (lucky money). Our red envelopes were filled with chocolate coins. The kids had been eyeing these all night and were excited when they were finally able to open them.
It was such a great night, and I was glad to share a little of Kalia’s culture with my family.
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