Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

This week, Mr. A and I have had a few conversations about the traditions and rituals we want to create for our family.  We both believe creating rituals will help connect us as a family, as well as reinforcing the values and traditions we want to pass on to the girls.  My family did a good job at creating family traditions as we were growing up.   Mr. A’s not so much.

When we were talking about how we want to celebrate Chinese New Year, Mr. A only had some vague memories to draw on.  That means we are pretty much making it up as we go along.   This is the first year we are taking it a little more seriously than we have in the past, because M is probably old enough to start forming memories.  Now is as good a time as any, I guess.  That being said, obviously we aren’t experts on CNY traditions.

This is a picture of the good luck (I think) banner things we hung on the door.  When my MIL saw them last weekend, she said “OH! Now people will know a Chinese person lives here!”  I am not sure if she meant that as a good thing or a bad thing.  Usually, we prefer the banners with the chubby babies, but we got to the store too late and they were sold out.

(Our door is actually more red than pink.  the flash just makes it look very mauve.)

Despite all my smart-assed comments about white people dressing their kids in Chinese traditional clothing, this is what the girls were wearing today.  It was totally by coincidence that I realized we had new outfits for both of them and Mr. A thought it would be fun if they dressed up.  M’s is from her dance recital last year, which she didn’t attend because we were in China.  L’s outfit was originally given to M by Mr. A’s aunt, I think, but she never wore it.   Both girls liked wearing the outfits, though L slid off her chair at dinner due to the silky pants and bumped herself pretty hard.

Mr. A took off from work early to come home and make dinner.  His Chinese cooking skills are usually far superior to mine.  We didn’t have a real feast because it was just the four of us, but he made long life noodles, bean sprouts and baby bok choy.  L scarfed up the noodles like a girl who hasn’t been fed in a week.  She seriously loves Chinese food.  I forgot to take a picture of dinner, but for dessert we had mochi instead of nian gao (basically because it is a little bit yummier).  L loved the mochi and kept stealing them off the table when we weren’t looking.

After dinner, we all read this book together.  M liked it.  L was not at all interested and used our distractedness to try to swipe more mochi.

Then, M got to work making some ghost money.  The ancestors will be living large now, because she drew two thousand-dollar bills featuring Blue and Magenta from Blue’s Clues.  We each lit three sticks of incense, I think because three is a lucky number.  But also, because we have ancestors in three families: mine, Mr. A’s, and L’s family.  We each sent our prayers/wishes to heaven with the incense and burned the spirit money. 

Then, Mr. A and I gave the girls their hongbao.  We asked M say Gong Xi Fa Cai! and bow, which she did.  That was basically how we celebrated Chinese New Year tonight.  We wanted firecrackers, but apparently they are illegal and thus unavailable in our state at this time of  year.  Next year, we will have to pick some up around the forth of july and hoard them until CNY.

 (This photo and the reading one were reinacted for your blog-reading pleasure.)