Happy Chinese New Year everyone!! Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gong Xi Fa Cai, Wan Shi Ru Yi, Nian Nian You Yu :)
This year my parents are here with us in Sydney, sooo we had our family dinner with our cousins at our place, and I got red pocket!!! ^^ well I know you might say, "You're already working anyway, you shouldn't get red pockets anymore!!". But still, getting red pockets take me back to my childhood when eventhough we weren't allowed to publicly display the celebration, had to have a letter written by my mum to get us out of school for the day, but we actually celebrated it quite festive.
Compared to kids nowadays, I think we had it better when we were kids. We always got new pyjamas and clothes for Chinese New Year (get cut growing up, but usually at least we got new t-shirt for pyjamas), had cookies, cakes, cashews and lollies ready at home for the guests, and on the day we went to relatives houses to say happy new year. Mind you, we didn't get red pockets from all of the relatives. Growing up, my uncles and aunties from my dad's side never ever ever EVER gave us red pockets. They all had mutual agreement of not giving them away to their kids. So what I was looking for was really the cakes and cookies and cordials lol XD I guess I was glutton even since I was small :P orrrrr I've always been able to find the good thing in everything ;)
We also always had Chinese New Year's Eve dinner with my dad's siblings family. I personally did not enjoy those dinners. 1. It was 10 dish Chinese dinner. Every food came 1 by 1 and took 2-3 hours just to get all the food out. 2. Apart from me and my sisters, we only had 2 similar age cousins. 1 of them is a boy, so he didn't count back then lol. The rest of the cousins were at least 6 years older, so sitting with them - who I honestly think had no interests whatsoever to 4 of us - was very boring. We weren't close either. The only occasions where we meet during a year were Chinese New Year and weddings. But at least we had those dinners as a tradition.
The one we always looked forward to was either going to my mum's family home on the Chinese New Year. That's the time we got our red pockets and meet the cousins from my mum's side. Compared to from dad's side, this cousin relationship is way way way wayyyy closer. We're all pretty much 1 year apart to one another, so it's really easy for us to get close to each other. Eventhough in total we had 6 years gap between me who was the eldest and the youngest one, each of us had few kids to play with, and 5 of them actually lived in the same house, so we were all close.
The food was more enjoyable too considering we didn't have to sit on the dining table and eat nicely. There wasn't enough chairs on the table, so we got to sit on the couch or sitting on the floor eating. It was so much fun :)
It's good that we were all growing up together. Looking at my 2 little cousins now, I'm pretty sure receiving my red pockets were more fun than them receiving theirs. Now it's only 2 of them getting the red pockets while on my time, there would probably be 5-6 cousins with me excitedly shouting Kiong Hee to an uncle or auntie who just arrived at the door and not even in yet XD It was fun times. I'm glad I have those memories :)
This year we tried to make our house look festive too. We had the cookies and cashews prepared, hung the Chinese ornaments and also stick some paper cutting and of course the monkey king decoration on the wall :) the only bad thing was just we still had to go to work :(
Well... at least I've got my colleagues wishing Happy Chinese New Year to me :)
Happy Chinese New Year everyone!! ^^
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