Chinese New Year part I

January 26 was Chinese New Year. It was the beginning of Chinese Year 4707. Hannah Ruth and I spent a few days in preparation. I made these red envelopes. On Chinese New Year the adults give the unmarried children money in red envelopes. I couldn't find red envelopes so I bought red paper and found a template on the web and made my own. I then found the Chinese characters for "auspiciousness" or good fortune or prosperity and wrote them free hand using a gold glitter glue pen. I thought they turned out well.

Hannah Ruth cut all of the lanterns herself. I folded the paper and marked the lines and then she cut them. She is an amazing cutter for three!

I cooked a Chinese dinner. You may notice in the reflection the tangerines on the table. Chinese New Year dinners usually include oranges because they are round and that symbolizes continuity and perfection (I think.) I made Chinese spare ribs, Chinese fried rice (found really good recipes on recipezaar.com,) dumplings (not from scratch,) and lettuce wraps. Of course we had Chinese oolong tea.

We had a lot of fun preparing and enjoying the evening. We missed Richmond. I did send him his red envelope at school!