January 23 is the start of the lunar new year of the Dragon and in China, begins an onslaught of firecrackers and fireworks to rival any military war zone.  With a brief respite in the daytime, firecrackers begin as the sun goes down to ‘chase evil spirits’ away and do not let up until the wee hours of the night.  For our family, the novelty of the fireworks wore off 7 years ago and really, after that first night.   This year we flee to the warm climate of Malaysia, where I’m hoping their celebrations are a little bit more controlled.

Chinese New Year is a time for most Chinese around the world to be reunited with family, no matter where you’re living or working, hence, the massive migration of the people in China during this time to return to their homes.   Living in a small Long Island suburb growing up—my cousins, aunts and uncles would ‘migrate’ from the city to our family’s house to celebrate together.  It was a time of eating a lot, folding paper money to be burned in our front yard for our ancestors, watching the adults playing endless hours of mahjong, and of course receiving ‘hong bao’s’ (red envelopes) filled with money and then gambling it playing dice games to try and double it.    I have such fond memories of those days.

I made some of my own ‘hong bao’s and fortune cookies from some left over paper I had from the holidays.  I took apart a real hong bao envelope and traced out a template using my paper.  For the fortune cookies you can follow these super easy steps from this link here. How are you celebrating Chinese New Year?