Well, our eldest daughter Chloe,
who is now 11 and has probably outgrown this “belief,” declared when she was
about 5 years old (much to the surprise of the teacher she announced this to), that she
was adopted from China. From that time
on, she has insisted on celebrating Chinese New Year- to honor the “place of
her birth.” Although Chloe is not truly adopted from China, we have humored her
for years by celebrating Chinese New Year annually.
The Lunar New Year is truly an important cultural tradition to the Chinese
and is a time for family reunions. It is a
traditional custom for close knit Chinese families to get together for a special
Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner. During this time, Chinese Christians give
thanks for the bountiful blessings they have received in the past year and also
ask the Lord to bless them for the coming year. This is one of the reasons why
Chinese Christians celebrate their New Year -because it can strengthen their
faith together in the One True God. 
In
our family, we order yummy food from “The Dragon Treasure Restaurant,” and spend
time together after a prayer for our meal, eating, playing games, and doing
Chinese crafts. This year we’ve added
eating theme based cookies the tradition-due to my new cooking decorating hobby.
It’s overall just a fun time for us,
spending time together and appreciating a culture other than our own a bit.
Chinese culture is also full of folklore,
according to one of these stories:
Once upon a time,12 animals competed in a big
race across a river. The rat jumped on the back of the kindhearted ox, who saw
no problem giving the little guy a lift from one riverbank to the other. But as
they neared the finish line — ahead of the others — the rat jumped off the ox
and snatched first place. The ox came in a close second. The Year of the Rat is, then, the first on the Chinese
calendar, followed by the Year of the Ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse,
sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, & pig... based on the order in which the
creatures finished the race.
This Year, a 15 day celebration begins on
Saturday, January 28th & marks the Year of the Rooster. For
thousands of years, roosters have been viewed “as in charge of time, because the
rooster wakes up the day.” The rooster is also symbolic of hard work and
diligence— always the first one up, with energy to take on a new day.
Although there are some aspects related to the
Lunar Calendar and Chinese New Year that are not desirable as Christians, there
are some fun cultural pieces that we can choose to focus on if celebrating this
holiday. This year: working hard and
diligently (like the rooster) is a great goal for anyone to focus on! (Notice: I did not say always
being the first one up or waking everyone else up!) 😴😴😴😴
