The new year started very quickly as we busied ourselves with new goals for the next 12 months after a relaxing holiday with a lot of quality family time. Chinese New Year (CNY) is coming soon in 2 weeks, starting in early Feb. It usually happens in late Jan to mid-Feb period according to the Chinese calendar.
I can sense s festive period of excitement building up for many people as we start to do spring cleaning and begin to stock up with CNY goodies, preparing for reunion dinners. We will eat a lot and have precious family gatherings where alcohol and pineapple tarts will flow freely.
For me, the excitement is the preparation of the reunion dinner, thinking about the dishes I want to prepare and stuff to buy. Just this morning, I rushed to the CNY seafood warehouse sales to check them out and buy some of the stuff I needed. They opened at 9 am and I wanted to avoid the weekend crowds where busloads of elderly people are there via community centers organized tours to shop too. I normally only cook for the family for Christmas Eve and CNY reunion dinner, bringing my family together with my parents and in-laws.
This main CNY reunion dinner will be held on the eve of CNY on 09 Feb. The day before, we will also have one at my sister-in-law’s place on 08 Feb. Tomorrow evening, there will also be another early reunion dinner with my sisters’ families and our parents, an almost 20+ group of close family members with the new additions, dad’s great-grandchildren.
We will also line up several visitations for the first 3 days of CNY. Generally, we pay our respects to our elders on day one, visiting the homes of our parents and in-laws plus the most senior ones in the clan. There will be a lot of food and many meals to enjoy, with special goodies and dishes only to be found during CNY. We usually end the first night with a big gathering that evening with my wife’s side of the family.
The 2nd day will be more visits and we normally spend much of the afternoon till night at my parents’ place with another big gathering of our extended family. Besides a lot of titbits, there is also the S’pore tradition of the Loh Hei, a tossing of vegetables with sweet sauce and making a lot of noise to welcome luck into the year of the wood dragon.
The Loh Hei was a 1960s local invention that charges a crazily expensive price for mostly julienned fresh vegetables masquerading as a healthy dish with too much unhealthy stuff hidden inside the salad LOL.
The whole CNY period (2 weeks before and after) will be a festive period of celebrations to usher in a new year. It is also the satisfaction of seeing well-fed family members spending quality time together, laughing together at wine-influenced jokes that makes it so memorable.
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