Happy Chinese New Year!

We welcome the year of the Fire Rooster today, happy Chinese new year everyone!

It is a time of get-togethers, quality family time and lotsa eating and drinking in excess. I look forward to the reunion dinners and I usually have 3 every year. Last night, we had it at our place with my parents, my in-laws and my sister, as we have been doing for a number of years. We did something different this year and I prepared a traditional steamboat dinner. Took me a few weeks to prepare, to buy the required ingredients. As usual, I overdid it and created the mother of all steamboats. I think we had enough food to feed twice the number of people we had last night. Nevermind, the balance of the remaining food can be used for a delicious porridge meal in the following days.

I cherish these elaborate dinners because it is a means for the extended families to get connected again in a very deep way, where 3 generations come together over a meal. As the 2nd generation, I pay respect to my parents as they age another year while we instill in our children the need to respect our elders and cherish the valuable moments.

The first 3 days of CNY is more of the same, house visitations and getting to meet people who you may only see once a year, usually at such occasions as we all congregate at the home of the eldest relative to pay our respect to her. Thanks to social media, we can now record all our group photos to share with everyone and record the event.

Here’s to many more of such meetups and merry-making!