Gong Xi Fa Cai!

That means Happy New Year in Mandarin...I think! Blogger wouldn't allow me to use the Chinese characters but it should be close. For those of you that speak Mandarin please feel free to correct me. The Chinese New Year kicked off last Thursday Feb. 3rd. Happy year of the Rabbit! We didn't end up getting to really celebrate it this year due to some other circumstances but we are hoping next year we will be celebrating it with our son or daughter. We plan to make it a celebration every year with family and friends to help celebrate their Chinese culture, so expect invites next year!

The Chinese New Year is a celebration that lasts 15 days and is similar in importance and some ideas as the Christmas/ New Year's season in the United States.  Each year has an animal associated with it and everyone has a Chinese zodiac animal. It does not exactly correspond to birth years. This is the year of the Rabbit. I am
a Sheep/Ram and Adam turns out to be a monkey. Pretty sexy animals!

This is a time Chinese return home and see their families. A time for many celebrations with food, gifts, and parties. A time for "sweeping out the old" and looking forward to the future. I tried to find a good educational website to link to about the Chinese New Year celebration and the best one I could find thus far is actually a Canadian website from the University of Victoria. This link goes to their page that describes some of the customs, foods, traditions, etc.
Chinese New Year Info

February is always my busiest month at work so posts might be fewer this month but I thought I would sneak a few in. We will keep people updated but probably will just be a paperwork month so nothing terribly exciting!