I love that every family creates their own unique Chinese New Year celebration by personalizing it to their tastes and interests. I’ve been a mom for 7 years and it has taken that long to settle into the Chinese New Year experience I want my daughters to learn from and hopefully look forward to every year. Here are our 4 family traditions to celebrate Chinese New Year.
1. Prepare for Chinese New Year together. Here is a 4 Week Chinese American Planning Guide to get you started. Depending on your kid’s ages they will be able to help you a lot or a little, or maybe not at all if you have babies.
2. Make and eat special Chinese New Year foods. Growing up, there were foods I looked forward to eating because they were only made during Chinese New Year. I want to cook my family a Chinese New Year meal with all of the symbolic foods on New Year’s Day. Even though growing up I would help my mom, grandmother, aunts cook, it was a totally different ball game when you have to cook it yourself. Thankfully, with the help of my mom, cookbooks, and 7 years of practice, the dinner is pretty good now.
For Chinese New Year, my paternal grandmother made “tai”, a fried dumpling with potato mixed into the skin to make it extra crispy. When I was younger, my cousins and I would impatiently wait for the “tai” to come out from frying in the hot oil and cool off enough to eat. As I got older, my grandmother taught us how to stuff and wrap the dumpling with the twisted closure on top.
After she passed away, my mom continues her tradition for my dad’s family and makes the filling and potato dough. My sisters, aunts, and cousins gather together to stuff and wrap the dumplings. This time together is very special because we talk and catch up with each other and learn to make these traditional foods.
My brother is always in charge of frying the “tai”. He is single if anyone is looking for a “foodie” who loves romantic comedies.
My maternal grandmother makes “fat goh” (发粿), or prosperity (发) cake. Hers are the best and she gets a perfect “flower” on the top every time because she monitors the amount of steam and cook time diligently. Even with much practice, I still have not been able to get my fat gohs to flower as pretty as hers.
3. Get together with family and friends. Since I was born, we always got together with my dads family and my mom’s family to celebrate Chinese New Year. I married a Chinese man and now a third celebration has been added to the calendar. I treat Chinese New Year as a season and not a single day holiday to be able to see all of our families. Coordinating schedules can challenging, but well worth the time spent together. It doesn’t matter if the celebration is a single day with family or multiple times with friends, the important part is the togetherness.
4. Attend a Chinese New Year Family Event hosted by a local organization. I want my daughters to be immersed in Chinese culture during Chinese New Year because there is so much to learn and everything is well-spirited. Even though we don’t live in China, they get to see lots of people at these events and how big of a deal Chinese New Year is to Chinese people. My favorite is the event at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). We have attended the last few years and every year gets better and better.
One of my daughters favorite activity at the MOCA Lunar New Year Family Event is the Chinese calligraphy. They got to see the artist draw a character of their choice, they chose monkey because it was this year’s zodiac, and then the artist places a sheet of paper on top, hands them the brush and they got to trace. My daughters got exposure to history and the art of calligraphy
There were several tables with crafts to celebrate the new year.
Some crafts the girls got to take home but some they made, like the wishful fish scale, to be a part of a larger project. The whole fish (complete with head and tail) is symbolic because it represents wholeness and family togetherness. I really liked the representation that each scale helped to complete it.
The girls loved the performances. They were mesmerized by the beautiful costumes and synchronized dancing. It was amazing how the red silk dancers could perform in such a small space. The family festival also had traditional lion dancing, longevity noodle pulling demonstration, Chinese New Year legends story telling, and zodiac face painting. Even though it’s a busy day, I am so grateful for this event because when I’m sitting with my daughters and walking to each activity, we are talking about the different things that are happening and they are learning about Chinese New Year.
What are your Chinese New Year family traditions?
The Dumpling Mama xo
p.s. photos from Chinese New Year 2016
Today my mom went to a wake of someone who was like an uncle to her when she first came to the United States at age 16. Her father, my grandfather, and uncle were partners in a restaurant in Chinatown and my mom worked as a hostess. My grandfather had a massive heart attack when my mom was 20, he survived with only a fourth of his heart working and uncle pushed him out of the business. My grandparents were so angry and did not see or speak to him after that time. My mom did not see uncle for over 40 years, until his wake. My grandparents would not attend.
Chinese people love the color red. The color symbolizes happiness and good fortune and surrounds all special occasions and holidays. Fire is one of the 
I knew my husband, also known as Grouchy Husband, all my life. Our dad’s went to college together and we would see each other on summer vacations and holidays. Being three years older then me, I had a crush on him growing up and my diaries were filled with his name in hearts. We started dating in college and I showed him the diary entries. He was freaked out but tried to keep cool since we just started dating.
When we were in Killington, VT for my cousin’s wedding, Grouchy Husband and I took the girls to the 
Princess started on the SkyeJump. She was nervous at first but after she started jumping it was all smiles. Apparently it’s cool to wear socks that don’t match.
Baby wasn’t tall enough to do many activities, but she could do the Terra-Maze. There was a scavenger hunt inside the maze on top of finding your way out!
I didn’t think Baby would last finding everything in the scavenger hunt but she stuck with it and 25 minutes later we finally found our way out of the maze.
While we were in the maze Princess was on the Skye Ropes.
Grouchy Husband went with her.
He’s afraid of heights.
She looked like a professional out there.
It made me feel like I was watching her grow up everytime Grouchy Husband let her go to start a new obstacle.
I loved watching him follow her. This also made me feel like I was watching her grow up.
The one activity the girls could do together was the mining.
We bought bags of sand and the girls would pour a little at a time and then used the shakers to wash the sand away to reveal….
GEMS!
The girls could not believe how many gems they found. Mining was a huge hit!
On top of the super fun activities, look at this magnificent view!
I was cleaning out my daughter’s papers from first grade to make room for all of the papers she’s going to get in second grade. It made me smile how she progressed in her writing and spelling, how she learned addition and subtraction, and then I came across this poster. Scanning through, I stopped reading (and breathing a little) when I read “When I grow up I would like to be a model”. It’s these types of situations that create internal conflict between my Chinese heritage and American upbringing.
We just came back from 
Grouchy Husband wanted to teach Princess how to boogie board. Things started off on the right track.
But quickly started to get ugly.
This was bad.
And things ended with tears…not surprising, she didn’t want to boogie board again.
To make it up to her, Grouchy Husband had to build a sand castle.
There was a great 
He gave some extra help if they needed it.
Baby didn’t really play by the rules but was excited when she got the ball in the hole.
Ice cream was our daily treat.
The days were sunny and required sun hats.
The Boardwalk also had a little amusement park. Everyone should ride a “Crazy Submarine”!
Some rides Baby wasn’t tall enough to go on alone. Grouchy Husband and I both get motion sickness on rides but mine is worse so he has to go with the girls. This was a little caterpillar roller coaster and he had to squeeze himself into the seat…can you tell?
Princess was too scared to go on the caterpillar roller coaster but Baby was ok.
Baby is more of the dare devil then Princess when it comes to amusement park rides. She wanted to go on a flying ride but wasn’t tall enough to go alone…guess who had to go with her?
Baby loved this ride. Grouchy Husband wanted to throw up.
She wanted to go on the bumper car by herself. She couldn’t figure out how to move the car so after one ride, she decided to be a passenger in someone else’s car.
The kids had a blast in the amusement park.
We had such a great time and made so many memories.
A vacation with your kids is a ton of work, chaotic, and totally crazy. When you go on vacation with another family it’s double that! And double the fun!
When I 
We just got home from a week in my hometown of Clifton Park, NY. My parents are selling the house so it was a hard visit in the house knowing that it might be the last time. I purposely stayed a week because I wanted to visit with friends and family and take the girls to memorable places from my childhood. We brought their bikes because the house is on a cul-de-sac and a great place to ride bikes without many cars.
My parents are getting the house ready to be put on the market. They have been painting, fixing, and cleaning. Grouchy Husband helped move furniture to stage the house for photos and potential buyers. It still is not a reality in my mind the house will be sold and gone from the family. I’m in denial but it’s easier that way.
I took the girls to my high school to play tennis. I didn’t play tennis in high school, I played field hockey. I’m not athletic so I was the goalie. My youngest sister played tennis. Princess and I are learning to play tennis now and we’ve just gotten to a point where we can hit the ball on the court together.
The girls and I met a high school friend I had not seen in 20 years. We had a great time at the park and at lunch chatting and catching up.
We went to my Jewish Uncle and Aunt’s house in a nearby town to swim and visit. My Jewish Uncle is my dad’s best friend, so he is part of our family and Jewish, so he is my Jewish Uncle. Got it?!
Their pool was 90 degrees so the girls didn’t want to come out. There was a frog in the pool they chased and took turns holding. That poor frog…
We ate dinner together. Everyone helped, the girls shucked the corn.
We had a great visit. After dinner my Jewish Aunt threw her mink coat on the floor and invited the girls to sit. This is a memory my girls will never forget.
The last day we had breakfast at the Saratoga Race Track so we could see the horses train and practice. The food was not very good but the girls loved watching the horses run.