Haven’t been blogging for awhile. Chinese New Year is indeed a very tiring festive too. Visiting from one household to another and as we visit, the more we eat. All the New Year goodies are making me ‘out of shape’.

There is more visiting to come before the celebration officially ends on the 21st of Feb. Guess I’ll need to do more sit-ups right after that. But for now, I am definitely munching away.

Here’s the update of events for the past few days of ‘no-blogging’….

5 Feb 2008

Reunion Dinner with my small family.

‘Steamboat’ is the most common choice for all reunion dinner, where everyone sits together and put whatever they like into the piping hot soup to cook.

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6 Feb 2008

Reunion Dinner with my in-laws

This is also a time whereby everyone in the family must be present to have this meal together. Even if you are overseas, you must make a trip back. Thus, if you have a big family like my in-laws’, steamboat is the best choice. ‘cos everything is raw, do cooking required, hence not much oily dishes to wash. *wink*

Every year we will also do the ‘lou hei’, where everyone uses their chopsticks to mix up a big plate of carrot, turnip, small crackers chips and strips of abalone or salmon fish. As we mixed them up, words of good wishes for the new year is shouted out from everyone’s mouth. Its really a noisy scene but the kids loved it. For the first time, they could mess up as much as they like and not get scolded.

The kids were still laughing as everyone ate a bowl of this mess!

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7 Feb 2008

1st Day of Chinese New Year

The kids are ready with their oranges to wish Allan and I a ‘happy new year’.

Keatkeat was first to go with 2 mandarin oranges in his hands, he wished Allan ‘Gong Xi Fa Cai’, meaning lots of wealth.

In return of the well-wishes, Allan gave Keatkeat 1 ‘hongbao’, red packet with $$$ in it and wished Keatkeat all the best of his studies.

Then comes Binbin with his big smile and mandarin oranges to wish his daddy ‘happy new year’.

A ‘hongbao’ in return wishing Binbin good health all year round.

Then it was my turn with the kids. Oranges first.

Then comes the red packet with $$$. Keatkeat just can’t get his eyes off the ‘hongbao’. He must be imagining how much money there is and how many toy cars he can buy with it.

Look at the tiny 2-year-old hands.

And one cute little ‘car hong-bao’ for the cute little one.

Now we are ready to go and visit all the other relatives. Mandarin oranges are packed in my bag to wish the elders a happy new year.

Colourful Mickey and Minnie hong baos with $$$ in them are ready too for all the kids.

So first stop was at my in-laws’ house. The kids brought along their lion dance head. It is very auspicious to have the real one to visit your house (of course, that usually comes with a price). We could not get the real ones to visit my in-laws, so we got the mini-ones. The old folks were so happy, they could not stop laughing for quite awhile.

Took the chance to take a family photo too. Going to get it developed and framed it up for my in-laws too.

This is just the first stop. Many more relatives to visit…..over the next 15 days.