Chinese New Year

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year, marking the first day of the new year in the Chinese calendar. Every Chinese is busy preparing for this auspicious day. Tonight everyone in the family will be home to celebrate the reunion dinner together. No matter where a person is, he or she will make it a point to be home for this dinner. When I was younger, it was always mum and dad and we, the children. We never celebrated this day with our grandparents. I would say it was quite a lonely affair if I compare it to now. Ever since my parents became grandparents, the reunion dinner has become a very noisy affair. All my siblings and my nephews and nieces will be home. Then, there will be lots of eating, drinking and merrymaking. Of course, prior to the dinner, we have a lot to do. Running around getting everything that's needed. It is very tiring but in the end, looking at all the happy faces, it is worth it. I remember, when I was younger, my siblings and I would always look forward to getting ang pows and we would be counting the number of ang pows that we would get. But now that we are adults, it is our turn to give out these ang pows. It's still the tradition that those who are not married do not give ang pows but I would give ang pows to my nephews and nieces, just so that they can have an extra collection of them. This year we are having barbecue again. We have added something new, that's steamboat. Everything's prepared and we are waiting for everyone to be here to start the merrymaking. Finally, a very Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year to one and all! May the year of the ox bring us good health.

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