Sshin-nyen haoww!
That's the phonetic way to say 'Happy New Year,' directly translated as 'New Year goodness,' in Mandarin. While the Chinese New Year actually begins Monday, we had fun celebrating today:
2016 is the Year of the Monkey. The monkey Noah is holding is actually the toy he greeted Peter with the morning they first met face-to-face. There are many Chinese New Year traditions, including wearing red, hanging red lanterns, and eating dinner with several generations of family around a round table. We were blessed to celebrate with Matt's parents, making it three generations around our kitchen table. The kids are wearing Chinese noble hats from our local Chinese market. We purchased the red lanterns on Shamian Island, China, with Peter back in May.
As much as our family enjoys food, this blog post would not be complete without a picture of our mini-feast. It included Chinese barbecue pork (tastes like candied meat), tofu with peppers, Chinese eggplant and bok choy, all from our local Chinese market and all absolutely delicious. Here is a picture of Peter outside the market this afternoon when Matt took him along to pick up our goodies:
It is fun learning about and celebrating Petey's Chinese heritage as we add these customs, practices and observances to our family traditions. We look forward to adding more Chinese New Year traditions next year when the boys are older.
Sshin-nyen haoww, friends!
