How My Family Celebrates Chinese New Year (And Why It Matters to Us)

- Mama

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #NewYearFortune #CollectiveBias

Chinese New Year is an important celebration, and not just in China! As a homeschooling family, we love to celebrate new holidays and traditions from around the world, and as foreign exchange student hosts, it makes it even more fun! Here's the low-down on what Chinese New Year is all about (and how to celebrate with your family, too!) #NewYearFortune #ad

After nearly a decade of hosting foreign exchange students, my family is no stranger to sitting down to dinner not knowing who will be there and how many cultures might be represented at the table. It’s opened our eyes to new celebrations (like when our first student taught us all about St. Nicholas Day), but our family, having yet to host a Chinese exchange student, has never gotten the opportunity to celebrate Chinese New Year. We decided to change that this year. And, what better way to celebrate than with some appetizers that are restaurant-inspired and totally delicious?

Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, which means instead of ringing in the new year the night of December 31, the date is a little more fluid. This year, Chinese New Year will land on February 19, and we will be moving from the year of the horse into the year of the sheep.

Chinese New Year is an important celebration, and not just in China! As a homeschooling family, we love to celebrate new holidays and traditions from around the world, and as foreign exchange student hosts, it makes it even more fun! Here's the low-down on what Chinese New Year is all about (and how to celebrate with your family, too!) #NewYearFortune #ad

My family has tried our hand at Asian cuisine before, but it just hasn’t turned out quite right, which meant for our Chinese New Year celebration, we were going to play things simple with some restaurant-inspired cuisine from Tai Pei®. So, we headed over to our local Walmart and checked out the selection! With great choices like egg rolls and spring rolls in several flavors, there was something for everyone. We found the egg rolls and spring rolls in the freezer section, in the area marked “meals.” We couldn’t decide which sounded the best, so we picked up Chicken egg rolls, Shrimp egg rolls (my brother couldn’t resist), and some Vegetable Spring Rolls, too!

While we were at Walmart, we also grabbed red envelopes… why? Because it’s tradition! You see, Chinese New Year, which focuses on having good fortune, is known for a traditional gift in a red envelope. Often, it’s gold coins or money… which makes sense with the good fortune!

Chinese New Year is an important celebration, and not just in China! As a homeschooling family, we love to celebrate new holidays and traditions from around the world, and as foreign exchange student hosts, it makes it even more fun! Here's the low-down on what Chinese New Year is all about (and how to celebrate with your family, too!) #NewYearFortune #ad

Tai Pei® also loves good fortune, and you can tell by the awesome feature they had on the box… it was entertaining for the whole family! I’m a QR code nerd, so I have a QR code reader on my phone (they’re free to get anyway!) and we had fun passing the phone and scanning our boxes for a fortune!

Chinese New Year is an important celebration, and not just in China! As a homeschooling family, we love to celebrate new holidays and traditions from around the world, and as foreign exchange student hosts, it makes it even more fun! Here's the low-down on what Chinese New Year is all about (and how to celebrate with your family, too!) #NewYearFortune #ad

(It worked perfectly, because I had forgotten to pick up fortune cookies! Oops. Even though fortune cookies aren’t really traditionally Chinese, they’re fun, and this definitely made up for me forgetting to buy some!)

On Chinese New Year’s Eve, families typically gather to have a reunion dinner. Since we weren’t able to gather all of our friends to celebrate with us, as they live around the world, we took it as a great indicator that we needed to make some Skype dates, including talking to a close friend in Brazil, and a special phone call to my grandmother. After all, even if you can’t sit down to a meal together, it’s great to have the opportunity to reconnect with the family you love, especially on a day that’s all about reunion. (Of course, we were celebrating early, but still…)

As we passed the phone around, we quickly prepared our Tai Pei® appetizers and the rest of our meal. It didn’t take long– the egg rolls and spring rolls only take about 15 minutes to cook (which also makes them perfect for snacking or a lunch side).

Chinese New Year is an important celebration, and not just in China! As a homeschooling family, we love to celebrate new holidays and traditions from around the world, and as foreign exchange student hosts, it makes it even more fun! Here's the low-down on what Chinese New Year is all about (and how to celebrate with your family, too!) #NewYearFortune #ad

 

For dinner, I rolled out a red table runner. Are you sensing a color theme yet? Part of this stems back to the beginnings of Chinese New Year. Legend states that a mythical beast called the Nian would come and eat… it would eat everything– livestock, crops, villagers. To protect themselves, villagers would make food, in hopes that if the Nian ate the prepared food, it would be too full to eat any of the villagers, crops, or livestock (which makes you wonder, did any of the villagers prepare egg rolls and spring rolls as part of the Nian’s feast?). One villager, however, wasn’t satisfied with preparing food. He heard from a god that if he put red paper on his house, the Nian would go away, as it was afraid of the color red! After that, the villagers started hanging red lanterns and red cloth or paper outside of their homes, and exchanging gifts in red envelopes, to keep the Nian away on Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year is an important celebration, and not just in China! As a homeschooling family, we love to celebrate new holidays and traditions from around the world, and as foreign exchange student hosts, it makes it even more fun! Here's the low-down on what Chinese New Year is all about (and how to celebrate with your family, too!) #NewYearFortune #ad

Because we’re a homeschool family and it wouldn’t be a celebration if we didn’t, we enjoyed learning all about Chinese New Year and some of the traditions and superstitions surrounding it. One thing that we found interesting was that it’s believed to be bad luck to light a fire or use knives on Chinese New Year. Luckily, the Tai Pei® egg rolls and spring rolls don’t require the use of either one! They even come with a dipping sauce that’s SO yummy. My dad and I enjoyed mixing it up a little by adding some sriracha to the included sauce to make it sweet-and-spicy… yum! Many Buddhists also believe that eating meat on Chinese New Year is bad luck… but that’s okay, because there are always vegetable egg rolls and vegetable spring rolls to be enjoyed (and it means more Chicken egg rolls for me!)

We decided also to serve oranges with our dinner. Why? Because oranges are often given as gifts during Chinese New Year because they symbolize luck and fortune!

If you’re wanting to give gifts for Chinese New Year, there are a few things you will want to avoid for sure– don’t give a clock unless you’re hoping to tell someone you’re basically escorting them to the grave, and don’t give a green hat unless you’re wanting to symbolize infidelity. Shoes, pears, umbrellas, and sharp-bladed objects are also off-limits for giving at Chinese New Year, but rest assured that gifts of sweets, oranges, and cookies are always appreciated!

Chinese New Year is an important celebration, and not just in China! As a homeschooling family, we love to celebrate new holidays and traditions from around the world, and as foreign exchange student hosts, it makes it even more fun! Here's the low-down on what Chinese New Year is all about (and how to celebrate with your family, too!) #NewYearFortune #ad

 

During dinner, we talked a lot about the Chinese Zodiac. As we prepare to enter into the year of the sheep, we thought it would be fun to learn a little bit more about our own Chinese Zodiac signs. While I knew I was born in the year of the dragon, I didn’t realize my brother was also a dragon! Both of us tend to have periods of highs and lows, and we both tend to over-work, especially when we are focused on something we’re really interested in, which is so true to our sign as a dragon. My mom and my son are both rabbits, which also seems to suit them. We about died laughing when we read that rabbits tend to have people approach them and talk to them for no apparent reason– it’s long been known that if we send my mom to Walmart, we should plan several hours for the trip because she will stop and talk to everyone. Literally everyone. My dad, strong and hardworking (and also stubborn), is an ox. No surprise there!

Chinese New Year is an important celebration, and not just in China! As a homeschooling family, we love to celebrate new holidays and traditions from around the world, and as foreign exchange student hosts, it makes it even more fun! Here's the low-down on what Chinese New Year is all about (and how to celebrate with your family, too!) #NewYearFortune #ad

I think the best thing about celebrating Chinese New Year with my family was just getting to sit around and talk about the holiday. It was fun learning something new, and we all loved learning more about our signs in the Chinese zodiac. It was also really interesting to learn the cultural significance behind gifts given at Chinese New Year. I have a feeling if we ever do host a Chinese exchange student, we’ll be a step ahead because we’ve taken the time to learn a little bit more about what this holiday is all about!

Tai Pei® Egg Rolls and Spring Rolls make a great addition to a Chinese New Year celebration. As an easy-to-prepare, restaurant-style appetizer that comes with sauce, it’s perfect for your Chinese New Year party (and takes no prep work, unless you count turning on an oven as prep). You can check out the Tai Pei® website to learn more about their products, or follow them on Twitter and Pinterest. You’ll also want to be sure to stop by the Tai Pei® Facebook page because, while supplies last, you can go to the Red Envelope app on the Facebook page and get some good fortune of your own in the form of a coupon! Want more good fortune? Don’t miss out on a coupon in the Sunday paper on February 8!

 

Do you plan to celebrate Chinese New Year this year? Tell me all about your Chinese New Year plans in the comment below! May it be a year of good fortune for you and your family! Happy Chinese New Year, and 大展鴻圖 (may you realize your ambitions!)

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