Chinese New Year Celebration

Happy Chinese New Year! 

Is it the year or the sheep? ram? goat? 

Nobody knows! The Chinese word for all three of the above is "yang" which translates to 'horned animal" so nobody is really sure which one it is! 

That won't stop us from celebrating the new year though. 

Late last night the decorating fairy came through the house and transformed our Mardi Gras themed dining room into Chinese New Year! 

There is something a bit odd about eating left-over King Cake for breakfast in China, but I guess this is what it would feel like to be a jet setting globe traveler! 

Back to the celebration at hand, Chinese New Year is here! 

We've gone with a color palette of red and black and gold. 

The buffet is all gussied up in black with gold chargers and lovely red accents like our red fans and decorative fire crackers from Oriental Trading Company. 

We've also added some garden lanterns that I painted with Chinese symbols and various other Asian inspired knick knacks.

The table is wearing red with bands of gold and black though the center. 




The table is adorned with gold charger plates, black melamine plates, red fans and this adorable flatware with faux bamboo handles (these will be back for any tropical summer parties ahead!).

There are chocolate gold coins scattered through the center of the table to symbolize prosperity in the new year! (can you see how these decorations work all year round? Those are the Christmas coins, that came back for Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year, and you can bet your lucky charms that they will be filling my pots of gold for St Patrick's Day too!)

We have little black soup bowls for Wonton or Egg Drop soup on small round bamboo-like mats and chopsticks resting atop. The mats are decorated with our red paper dragons (also from Oriental Trading Company).

(Pssst....those black bowls are actually salsa bowls and you can bet your burritos they will be back for our Cinco De Mayo celebration. I won't tell anyone if you won't!) 

I am very excited about my fortune cookie fortune, because it feels like it is affirming everything I am doing here on the blog. 

It says "You are a fun loving person and will find much happiness." Fortune telling aside, I can agree with the psychology of this fortune! 

Finding happiness is more likely to happen if you are looking for it -- I can word that better -- If you choose to look for the good and the beauty in this world as opposed to focusing on the negative, your world is a happier place, and you'll find things that bring you happiness all around you.

If you believe in the law of attraction this works well, but as I often say, if you don't believe in the Law of attraction and you try this -- spending your time focusing on positive things -- and it turns our the 'law' isn't real, you just 'wasted' all your time being positive and thinking about things that make you happy! I can live with that!

We feasted on delicious General Tso's Chicken with mini  Kung Pao egg rolls and mini spring rolls on the side. We also had Black Rice with carrot garnish (so mega healthy and delicious! more antioxidants than blueberries!).We scored a big bag of the black rice at Costco!

Peggo made the General Tso's from a kit at Aldi and the Mini Kung Pao egg rolls also came from Aldi freezer section. 

The Mini Spring Rolls are from Jennifer's Garden -- how could I resist them with a name like that?

Everything was delicious and we all gobbled it up happily before opening our fortune cookies and reading them aloud.

As usual, Evie, my adorable little grandmother declared that all fortune cookies must have the phrase "...in bed" added to the end of the fortune.

Evie's fortune: "There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead for you...in bed" 

Feather's fortune: "Have patience, it will benefit you....in bed"

Peggo's fortune: "Fame and fortune lie ahead...in bed"

My fortune: "You are a fun loving person and will find much happiness...in bed"


So, there you have it! Looks like another exciting lunar year ahead for all of us...in bed!