Chinatown NY, NY is a second home to me. Even though I grew up in Upstate New York, I would visit my grandparents in Chinatown at least once a month, if not more, for holidays, celebrations, and vacations. After college, I lived there for 7 years before I got married and moved to the suburbs. Now with my own children, I bring them to visit their great grandparents and experience the Chinatown that I know and love.
Our home base is Confucius Plaza, an apartment complex in the middle of Chinatown my maternal grandparents and brother live. My paternal grandparents have passed away and now my brother lives in their apartment. If I’m driving, I always try to make it to Chinatown before 11am so I can get the early bird special in the parking garage under Confucius Plaza. It’s the best $17 I’ll ever spend.
We purposely come to Chinatown hungry because eating is our favorite thing to do besides visiting family. The first meal we eat is dim sum. We’re usually a big group, some mix of my grandparents, parents, husband, daughters, brother, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. We go around 11am to beat the crowds and always to Delight 28 because it is my grandmother’s favorite restaurant. It doesn’t take long before our table is completely covered with steamed rice noodles, pork buns, turnip cake, sticky rice, and several stir fried noodle and rice dishes. We always overeat and then have to walk around Chinatown to help our stomachs digest.
My husband, brother, and dad usually take the girls to the Columbus Park playground. With monkey bars, slides, and swings, it’s one of their favorite playgrounds and they have a total blast every time. My mom, grandmother, and I go shopping for groceries and pastries. My grandfather was a chef and owner of a restaurant in Chinatown so I grew up knowing where to go to get the best food. We go to Mei Li Wah for roast pork buns and Golden Manna Bakery for egg tarts and pineapple buns. Chinatown has so many fresh groceries I stock up on leafy green vegetables, fruit, and live fish. Everyone meets back at my brother’s apartment after playing and shopping to relax, watch tv, and nap. We have to rest our stomachs to be ready to eat dinner.
Chinatown has some of the best food in Manhattan. Depending on how we feel, we will either go out to dinner or eat in. If we want to eat soup dumplings, we’ll go to Shanghai Cafe. If we want to eat Vietnamese pho, we’ll go to Thai Son. Or if we feel like eating more Chinese food, we’ll go to Noodletown or back to Delight 28. Sometimes we’ll just want to relax at home so we’ll cook some of the groceries we bought that day or order in.
My brother’s apartment is the apartment I lived in for 7 years and after I moved out I use to keep some clothes and bathroom toiletries for those impromptu nights I would stay in the city. Those type of nights are a distant memory and now my clothes and bathroom toiletries have been replaced with toys and clothes for my daughter’s so they can play and take baths before heading back to the suburbs with a car full of groceries and a belly full of food.
I hope your Chinatown experiences are as memorable as mine.
Chrissy xo
Good luck is at the center of Chinese New Year. The focus of every celebration attended, tradition followed, food eaten, is to bring as much luck as possible into the coming year. One way to wish others good luck is to give money in 
I just came back from our annual snow weekend at Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Cheryl’s house in Vermont where we celebrated my Dad, Uncle Ronnie, and Uncle Billy’s birthdays. It is always a great time skiing, snowboarding, eating, and catching up with family. This was the first time my Dad went skiing after his knee replacement surgery in October. Nervous at first, but that wore off quickly because he skied all over the mountain including diamond trails. Aunt Cheryl was with her sister in Mexico and the weekend wasn’t the same without her.
This year Baby was old enough to go to snow school and take snowboarding lessons. My mom insists on their hair always looking perfect before leaving the house (even if it will be under a helmut snowboarding).
Because she was taking snowboarding lessons, Princess also wanted to take snowboarding lessons in snow school. This was a surprise because she has been skiing for the last two years. Grouchy Husband is so excited at the thought of being a family of snowboarders.
After everyone gets ready in the morning, we all walk down the driveway to the bus stop and wait for the bus to come take us to the mountain.
While we wait, we take photos.
And more photos…
The girls were signed up for snow school to learn to snowboard. 
I always find out the ski school itinerary so that I can peak in on their lessons. Baby was the only one in the snowboarding lesson. The instructor walked with her out to the learning area. Helped her get into her snowboard.
Pulled her by a string up the hill.
Gave her a little pep talk.
Then had her slide down. Then did this over and over again. It was adorable.
Princess also was the only one in her snowboarding lesson. She was much more polished. She was learning to ride her toe and heel side.
She even looked like a pro taking her boot out of the binding and pushing her way to the magic carpet.
After a day on the mountain, it is so nice to come back to the house, relax and eat.
The girls learned to play 
They got makeup lessons from Cousin Sami. When the girls are old enough to wear makeup, Sami will teach them (and me) how to put it on.
Baby got life lessons from my brother.
She also learned how to play dominos from Uncle Ronnie.
And we celebrated another birthday year. I didn’t get to see this celebration because I fell asleep putting the girls asleep. I’ll have to remember to set an alarm to wake up in time next year.
Noodles have a big part in Chinese culture and history because they symbolize long life. They are always part of birthday or Chinese New Year meals because eating them is thought to promote 
Before I knew it, it was a couple of days before the church Christmas performance and realized I didn’t have anything performance-appropriate for the girls to wear. I nervously bought these 
Walking zombie.
Rage.
Serious.
Peace.
1.5 Peace.
Hop.
Jump.
Almost flying.
I can’t remember my 
This Christmas season kicked off with our annual trip to 
Baby had a holiday sing-a-long at her school. I don’t think she (our the rest of the school) knew most of the songs that were sung but she was the cutest one trying.
The girls both sang songs in the church Christmas performance.
Princess was in a special singing group that practiced 45 minutes before church for months. The songs had different melodies and different groups sang in different tones. It was very sophisticated and grown up.
I look forward to the 
I remember a lot of laughing that night.
I make everyone take a group photo at Cousins Dinner. My brother was sick, he fell asleep on the couch early so we just gathered around him. The first photos are always silly.
But then we finally make our way to a respectable photo.
The girls got to open their gifts from my parents on Christmas Eve. My Dad fills our stockings with the most practical gifts. This year I got a memory card for my camera, batteries, and mints.
Our family has grown so now not all of the stockings match.
Baby was so excited to get a 
My brother-in-law’s birthday is right before Christmas so we celebrated with him. He and my sister have a new baby but she was sleeping by the time we had cake.
We celebrated Christmas day with my family in Brooklyn. We drank a lot of champagne and 
My cousins taught Princess how to jump rope.
My new niece is a cry baby and was able to make it through dinner but then had to leave because she had cried 2 hours straight.
My Cousin’s new wife is a concert pianist. He also knows how to play the piano and they both entertained us with a duet.
After dinner she entertained us with her unbelievable playing. Princess just started taking piano lessons and is so excited and inspired to maybe play like her one day.
The girls brought an activity for my cousins to do. It was a sticker activity and the they were going to pick their favorite pictures.
It was a tough choice. They loved all of the pictures.
They chose their favorites and the winners got to take a picture with them.
My cousins dressed alike on Christmas (I think unintentionally) so they wanted to take a picture with the girls because they were dressed the alike also (intentionally).
Now that Princess can read she was in charge of handing out the presents. It is a tradition that the youngest in the family has to hand out the presents. Baby was her helper.
It took a while to get all of the presents handed out, maybe an hour. Good thing there was a lot of champagne.
I love our Chinese American holiday dinners. Smoked prime rib, baked yams, steamed fish, spare ribs with black bean sauce, lobster Cantonese. Delicious.
Our family has grown so much there were two seatings for dinner. The “kids” (anyone under 50) ate first. Then the “adults” (older then 50) ate.
The day after Christmas we went to the Berkshires to celebrate with my in-laws. The girls were in heaven. It was the third day in a row opening presents.
And more eating. I am officially on two diets and will be going to the gym three times a day.
I was not one of those people who went through high school and college knowing or even thinking about their career. Socializing was my favorite subject in school but I was bright enough to get good grades with minimal effort. In high school and college I always thought I would be a housewife like my mom. I graduated as a Math major, thought I would go to graduate school until my dad asked me to find a job for a couple of years before going back to more school. I started my working career during the Internet boom in 1999 so I found a job at a startup. I worked at the startup until a few months after it was sold, then went to a hotel company, then to an agency. In the last few years, I’ve shifted my career to consulting. I’m a wife, mom, and friend. I’ve started this blog post with these details so that you know I’m just a regular, average person.
This year’s Thanksgiving was just as eventful as all past years visiting with family and a lot of eating. My Aunt Martha hosts Thanksgiving at her home in Long Island. This year I brought the fruit plate because Princess has developed a lot of fruit allergies and can only eat certain fruits.
I love that all of our holidays are a mix of Chinese and American foods. For Thanksgiving, we eat turkey for dinner and dumplings for lunch. Everything is homemade. Here was the team wrapping dumplings. All of us “Wong” woman are skilled dumpling wrappers. The two ladies on the left, Alethia and Ayuko, married my cousins this year. This year has been amazing for my growing family, two of my cousins got married, my sister and sister-in-law both had babies.
We use my mom’s dumpling recipe because they are the best dumplings you will ever eat. Yes, I know it’s a bold statement but it’s the total truth. I call the dumpling arrangement on the plate the dumpling flower. I think my mom created this also.
The girls have been the only grandchildren in both my family and my Grouchy Husband’s until this year so they are use to hanging out with adults. The great thing about our families is everyone loves to play with them. My brother taught them to make mean faces.
Cousin David gave them a lesson on how to start a fire.
Cousin Mikey and his new wife, Ayuko, took them outside to play a game that was a cross between soccer and volleyball.
Then they came back inside and he gave them horse rides.
The girls looked at Ayuko’s wedding photos on the computer. They love anything to do with weddings, dresses, and sparkly things.
Then they had a dance party in the kitchen.
My mom and aunts take a break from cooking to enjoy the food.
Aunt Martha always cooks the turkey. It looks humungous every year.
Uncle Billy always carves the turkey.
Dinner was a long buffet of cornbread, salad, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, green bean casserole, ham, turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, and lots of gravies.
Aunt Martha gave a toast before we ate. She was a little tipsy so it was a little long winded but funny.
Then everyone loaded their plates full of food.
Before I could even think about getting food for the girls my mom already made their plates and was feeding them. She is the definition of being a mother.
Here we all are around the table.
This year we decided to combine the adult and kids tables so that we could all eat together. The girls were excited to be at the big table with the grownups.
After dinner we all sat around trying to figure out how our already overfull stomachs could eat dessert. The girls were being taught multiplication. Everything is a game to them.
On the last day of school before Thanksgiving, Baby’s class had a Thanksgiving party and invited parents. Before all parties, a list of party food and disposable eating products are posted outside the classroom for parents to sign up for. The items listed for the Thanksgiving party were a little bit different because they were going to eat a Thanksgiving meal. Cut up fruit and vegetables that are normally on the list, was replaced with mashed potatoes and cooked string beans. There is a strategy with the party list. It’s simple, the easy items, like paper plates, always go first, so I try to be one of the firsts to signup. I work part-time, my mom and Grouchy Husband help me with drop off and pick up of the girls. I am really lucky to have their support but because I’m not at the schools regularly, I’ve missed being one of the firsts to signup on the party list. For the Thanksgiving party, I was the last and had to bring a turkey. While sulking a little signing my name next to the turkey I would have to figure out how to cook, Baby’s teacher came up next to me and told me she thinks people aren’t signing up to bring a turkey because of a misunderstanding. They need a raw turkey so the class can cook it together. That moment made my day. Raw turkey is right up there with paper plates.
The party started with the class singing a song.
They made their pilgrim costumes and gave themselves pilgrim names. Baby was Pilgrim Elizabeth.
Here was the party spread. The class made the tablecloth decorations.
The dining table was decorated with the tree of life and a river down the middle.
The class mom made these hummus and vegetable sailboat appetizers to float in the river. I am always in awe with the creativity and effort from class moms and I hope one day before both my children graduate from high school I will have the courage to sign up and be one.
I looked over and was shocked when I saw Baby eating green beans. She doesn’t ever eat green beans at home. Baby’s teacher told me it’s peer pressure from watching her friends eat them around her. I need to invite her friends over to eat more often.
Once she found the toothpicks from the hummus sailboat, she ate the rest of her meal with them. Even the corn.
Here was the dessert spread. I really like Baby’s teacher because she tries to serve healthy food at the parties.
Baby was the last one at the table eating. She really liked the food but the toothpick really slowed her up.