Welcoming the new year

Living in China, I am lucky enough to celebrate two new year’s celebrations, with the second, the lunar new year being much more important.  There is a week off of work and this year, because of the lunar calendar there were only three weeks between my Christmas break and the lunar new year.  It is tradition to welcome the new year into your apartment.  This year – with New Year’s Eve on Sunday and Chinese Lunar New Year on Monday is the year of the dragon, hence the little dragons in our New Year’s door decorations.  Here are some photos.

Welcoming the new year into the apartment

More dragons.

Close up of the dragons

 

Decorating the door of the apartment building - aren't they cute?

 

 More traditional – wishing for wealthy and prosperity.

The neighbor's door - 福 means wealth

 The color red is an integral part of the festival and is everywhere this time of year.  There are annual parties (my company’s this year was Friday the 13th), people in the streets buying fruit baskets as gifts, and lots and lots of toasting.  My colleagues equate Chinese New Year with Christmas, but in my mind it is more like a week of Thanksgiving with a touch of the Fourth of July.  It’s a week of family and too much food and staying up late to look at the never ending fireworks. Now that this is the fifth Chinese New Year that I’m celebrating, the traditional phrases are starting to fall off my lips, but that doesn’t mean that they are any less genuine.

 

新年快乐！祝你们身体健康，万事如意，龙年大吉！(Xin nian kaui le! Zhu nimen shenti jiankang, wan shi ru yi, long nian da ji!)

 

Happy New Year! I wish you all health, 10,000 good things and a dragon year full of blessings.