This past Saturday was New Year's Eve... Lunar New Year, that is. To celebrate, we took a trip down to Houston to visit the family and have a good old fashioned Tet party. Doesn't Mia look like a little china doll???
If you're unfamiliar with the way Tet works, you have to know that the Asian culture is big until "Luck", primarily good luck. When family and friends get together for new year's (Tet in Vietnamses), the young wish their elder a new year filled with happiness, good health, success, etc. The elders, in turn, wish the children happy new year and give them red envelops (red being the lucky color) filled with cash. The cash is meant to symbolize the wealth that they will have the rest of the year. The money is called Li Xi. Or as Mark calls it, Lychee
Here is a picture of Mia's cousin Tracy Li Xi'ing her. Note the stash in Mommy's back pocket
Like I said, a very family oriented holiday. Here I am with 2 of my cousins (Jennifer on the left and Terri on the right) with our kids Meagan, Jonathan and Mia.
Mom also likes to put together a Li Xi tree that everyone gets to pick from. You could get $1, you could get $20! What's your luck going to be like?? Tommy & Steph trying to get it right:
The final tradition is a gambling dice game. You take your change and place it on one of six pictures (shrimp, crab, fish, deer, gourd or rooster. don't ask me how they come up with that combination). The house shakes 3 dice and pay out accordingly. Here's all of us hovered around as Meagan plays dealer in her Cinderella dress:
But that wasn't all! We also had a belated birthday celebration for Theresa & Meagan. We got Meagan the Cinderella dress and tiara for her b-day and she was so excited to put it on. Theresa wanted in on the game so Mom found her a pretty tiara as well. Aren't they darling??
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