When we adopted our first daughter Nova from China (four years ago!) we started celebrating Chinese holidays and traditions as a family. Each year, we decorate for Lunar New Year, host a small party, and read our Chinese children’s books during the two weeks.
My husband is a Chinese cooking enthusiast, so each year we try out new recipes. This year, we are learning to make mooncakes.
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Whether you are setting the table or decorating the house, these fun items are sure to bring a festive flair to your home!
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There’s something for older kids, new readers, and toddlers with this selection of Lunar New Year’s books (and the coloring book is a great gift as well!).
Wear your Lunar New Year celebration vibes all through the year with these cute choices!
We are still learning so much about how to celebrate and new traditions to incorporate, so if you grew up celebrating, I would love to hear your favorite traditions! xo. Elsie
Happy CNY!! Thanks for posting this! I purchased two of the dragons at a store here at our Chinatown and they are fantastic! Beautiful and the kids love them!!
Happy Lunar New Year! Thanks for writing this post and inviting readers to share their favorite traditions. I’ve been a long-time lurker but this is my first comment. LNY is my absolute fave holiday, especially because in Singapore where I grew up, it is a 2 day public holiday. As you may know, LNY traditions for Chinese people vary depending on which parts of China one’s family originated so my traditions are more Southern and South East Asian.
年糕 (nian gao) is a sweet sticky rice cake with a fun legend. Not my personal fave but to me, as classic to LNY as pie is to Thanksgiving.
火锅 (huo guo) aka hotpot, is a warm, communal meal. Perfect for cold weather, scales up or down easily.
薄餅 (bao bing) aka popiah, is a type of fresh spring roll. Perfect for Singapore’s hot weather.
Since marrying my husband and living in the US, we make dumplings either boiled 水饺 (shui jiao) or pan-fried 煎饺 (jian jiao) because his mother is from Northern China. I’ve also started sending postcards [designed by me] with auspicious greetings to my family members scattered throughout the world. https://www.etsy.com/listing/953340863/6-lunar-new-year-postcards-chinese-new
P.S. That dim sum sweater is SO cute!
Hi! This is Jeremy’s favorite place to learn Chinese recipes- they have a youtube as well- https://www.instagram.com/chinesecookingdemystified
This is a lovely post! Thanks for sharing even though I’m sure someone is criticizing you out there on social media. We do not celebrate lunar new year, but many of our friends & colleagues do! An idea I had (and maybe you already do) is to create a playlist or find a few Chinese music albums as part of your holiday sound track.
Oooh! Can Jeremy do a guest post with some recipes?
I love that you do with with your daughters! This is a sidenote, but you should totally have Jeremy do a guest post of some of his favorite recipes. You’ve mentioned he loves to cook and it’s also so fun to hear what people’s go-to recipes are!