Last year we had only been home a few weeks when Chinese New Year started so we really didn't do much celebrating other than going to the CNY parade downtown. We've been reading the book My First Chinese New Year over the past week and are starting some of the traditions mentioned in the book...we started yesterday by getting a new haircut
Then we came home and cleaned the house from top to bottom, not my favorite but it did feel good to have a clean, fresh start today :) This afternoon I gave Chen Chen one of the dresses we bought for her in Guangzhou and coaxed her into having a few pictures taken. I bought dresses in a few sizes so we could take pictures in traditional dress over the next few years. I bought them all in different colors but wish now I would have bought more red ones as I love how it looks on her.
Tonight we went to our favorite Chinese restaurant and gave her a red envelope (Hong Bao) with some chocolate coins, a gift card and a jade necklace we bought for her in China. My new jade necklace arrived this week and she was super excited to have one of her own and kept holding hers up next to mine to show how we matched. We bought hers in Beijing right before we met her, it's carved with her Chinese zodiac animal the rat.
Tomorrow I am going to her pre-school class to read a couple of Chinese New Year books and then we are going to make dragon puppets and hand out red envelopes and Cuties. We have some various snake themed crafts we are going to do after school this week and then we will go to the parade in Chinatown next weekend. Looking forward to lots of fun and celebrating over the next couple of weeks...Happy 2013 the Year of the Snake!
She looks so cute in her red dress! I'm sure the other colors will look great too :) So awesome to hear about all the fun ways you guys are celebrating the new year.
Posted by: Nirupama | February 10, 2013 at 10:45 PM