Our family celebrated Chinese New Year this weekend for the first time. Although we don't believe in the superstitions and legends surrounding this holiday, we thought it might be fun to be exposed to the Chinese culture in this way. We want our baby to have a sense of her roots in China and to see that we are willing to acknowledge the country that brought her into our lives. Last week, the kids and I made paper lanterns and paper cutouts to decorate for our celebration. We read some library books about this holiday, and about the lunar calendar. The year 2006 is the "year of the dog". (We had a couple of good laughs about which animal each family member was born under!) For supper we ate shrimp and rice stirfry with bean sprouts and sugar snap peas, cream cheese wontons, and fortune cookies. Of course there were both chopsticks and forks available. For dessert I made a traditional Chinese New Year dish, "Nian Gao", which is a cake made with special rice flour. Yummy! We had planned to go outside and light sparklers at the end, but since it was pouring rain, we skipped that part. The kids really enjoyed all of the preparation and food. Although it was not an authentic Chinese New Year celebration, we had a great time. It may even become a yearly tradition in our home. Next time, however, we hope to celebrate with our own lovely little China doll, too!
