Happy New Year, Big Mouth

Several weeks ago, we celebrated a mishmash of holidays: the Superbowl (a holiday in most Americans' books) and Chinese New Year. Craig's parents happened to be in town and joined his siblings and their kids at our home for a game-time feast.

In preparation for the event, the boys and I readied the house by adorning it with festive decorations. This year, I got my act together and ordered a box full of paper lanterns, dragons, and red envelopes, things that are near-impossible to find at the last minute in our local shops. If I were foolhardy enough, I could have braved the traffic into Philadelphia's Chinatown with two restless boys who would've been cooped up in the car for the hour's ride. But I'm not that unhinged.

I put the boys to work painting banners to hang around the doorway. Traditional banners often feature Chinese couplets celebrating the arrival of spring with its green shoots, lush flowers, and other allergens, but not ours. I failed to research in advance any pithy rhymes for the boys to trace over. My last-minute online search, complicated by 2 boys nagging me to show them a German prank video of people falling into a ditch, yielded nothing. So, I settled for pencilling "Xin Nian Kaui Le!" ("Happy New Year!") on large sheets of construction paper and letting Andrew paint over what I had written. I figured the characters might be too complex for 3 year-old William, so I let him trace over the two most basic characters I could think of: "Da" and "Ko," his favorite Chinese character. Put together, the words loosely read, "Big Mouth."

William made quick work of the project and wanted to do more, so I decided to let him try his hand at painting over a sheet on which I had written "Xin Nian Kuai Le" in a size too small for my liking. While he may have botched the stroke order, he surprised me by doing a capable job of the painting (see the bottom banner in the right-hand picture).

That Saturday, Andrew and his Chinese school classmates took to the stage for a brief Chinese New Year performance. If the obscured faces of the other children don't give him away in the picture below, surely the bright golden outfit he chose to buy online makes him easy to spot.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of William in his Chinese outfit. My mother bought him a gorgeous silk suit on her last trip to Taiwan. He looked so handsome wearing it to a New Year's party our friends invited us to the day before and for our own CNY/Superbowl party the next night. I was so preoccupied with all the flipping, sauteeing, and frying that went into our big dinner that I forgot to take any pictures of him or the food.

The evening's menu included homemade pork dumplings (thanks, K. women for your dumpling stuffing prowess), egg rolls, noodles with vegetables and chicken, steamed vegetables, beef and peppers, mantou (steamed bread rolls), and zongzi (sticky rice wrapped in leaves). I really wish I had taken a picture of the nian gao, the sticky rice flour cake that my mom sent me. It was practically begging for its own photograph with the smiley face she put on it using dried cranberries.

While I was busy in the kitchen, Andrew, William, their cousin Isaac, and Craig made a homemade lion mask. Just before kick-off time, the two older boys paraded through the house. You can briefly see William providing back up accompaniment on pot lid cymbals. Thankfully, CNY is a once-a-year event. Pot lid clanging has an unfortunate way of resonating off of high ceilings and nesting in one's brain in unforgettable ways.

We closed the evening with the distribution of red envelopes. As the resident elders, we put Craig's parents to work handing out the hong bao to the kids. From the oldest child, Andrew to the youngest, 1 year-old Allie, all of the kids bowed to their grandparents before getting their money. I figured doing so was a better alternative to their reciting the bratty children's rhyme, "Gong xi fa cai, hong bao na lai!" ("Congratulations and may you prosper. Now gimme my loot.")
Apart from the missing pictures of the cute kids and a peculiarly soupy beef with peppers dish, the only thing that would have made it an A+ evening would've been a win on the Pittsburgh Steelers, our last home state team standing. Nonetheless, I suppose I should count my blessings. At least it wasn't the Philadelphia Eagles who played and lost. The DSM lacks a section detailing certain psychiatric disorders that manifest in the Philly area when the Eagles lose a game. But, hush! I digress and put myself in dangerous territory to even speak of such a thing.
Xin Nian Kuai Le, 2 months late!