Another Year of the Tiger

Today was our Lunar New Year celebration as we're starting out the Year of the Tiger with a really big Chinese meal.  Mom set the table very nicely, and we had some extra decorations hanging up too.  Of course, we have a tree set up there along with all kinds of Chinese New Year decorations.  I dropped by our new favorite Chinese restaurant and picked up a massive feast, bringing that home for our meal.  We had our Chinese music playing in the background, including some of the music we purchased while we were actually in China about fourteen years ago.  

It was Mom's idea to bring up the smaller tree and decorate it for the holiday.  We have some nice decorations, and you can see amongst those decorations a few red envelopes, which of course are a tradition in China.  Inside are money gifts, some from Mom and I, and the other one from Nana too.

You can see along the bottom of the tree a tiger, because it's the YEAR OF THE TIGER!  Also there are the ladybugs and at the bottom other plush holiday items, like Mushu, and another dragon we picked up along the way as well.  There's a gift bag over there too, one we'll get to in a bit.  Maddie didn't see that one right away.

The tree looks nice though.  We've had some of these ornaments for a long time, and the existing Christmas tree ornament collection we have is growing, so this made sense to move these to this specific holiday.  

One more picture!  You can see the ladybugs that light up (when you insert a Christmas light inside them).    Some of these other ornaments have been on a shelf in Maddie's room, part of her ladybug collection.  The ladybug is of course a sign that a child is on the way, something we saw a lot of around our house just before Maddie arrived.

Here's Maddie with her red envelopes.  We used to have primarily chocolate coins in these, but some real cash is appreciated now!

Mom was photobombing in the back, and it really was a nice evening together celebrating the Year of the Tiger.  The feast we had was so amazing, with Jade Green combo, shrimp and lobster sauce, General Tso Chicken for Maddie, plus Won Ton soup, egg rolls, and crab Rangoon's as well.  Mom made us all some oolong tea too.

Afterwards, Maddie saw what was in her gift bag...

Maddie got her very own DiJang, or 帝江, if you want to say it in Chinese!  This was first seen by us in the movie "Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," which is something you can see Maddie also got to celebrate the day.

You may recall that in the movie, this creature was given the name "Morris" by Trevor Slattery.  I'm not sure if Maddie is going to give the DiJang this particular name or not, but she really did like getting one.  She hadn't seen this before, and when we saw it back a few weeks ago, we were laughing that this weird creature had a plush counterpart.

Instead of going with a movie this evening, we sat down at the kitchen table where Maddie, Mom and I played a game of "Lanterns," which is actually a fun strategy game with a Harvest Festival theme.  It took us a moment to remember the gameplay, but once we got going, it was super fun.  Maddie won in the end, but by the closest of margins.  We literally had a three-way tie that was broken by the presence of a favor token she happened to have.  We had a great time.

Later on, we did our reading tonight, and we said our prayers too.  Looking back on the evening, tonight's celebration was very nice.  We sent this  picture below out to all our friends, one we made twelve years ago during our last Year of the Tiger.  Look how small she was back then!