Preparing for Tet-The year of the Tiger

Tet, the Vietnamese New Year is February 14th and HG is already receiving gifts. A very special package just arrived... all the way from Vietnam! Ms. Hau sent Halle-Grace two au dai (traditional dress), a Vietnamese doll and a beautiful picture frame! She is an amazing lady! We will definitely spend some time with her on our next trip to Vietnam.

More about Tet ....
"Tet, the Vietnamese New Year is the most important Festival of the Vietnamese people. When Spring arrives, all Vietnamese are thrilled by the advent of Tet. Wherever they may be, they feel an immense nostalgia, wishing to come back to their homeland for a family reunion and a taste of the particular flavors of the Vietnamese festivities. This Festival occurs sometime between late January or early February, depending on Lunar Calendar. Although officially a three-day affair, festivities may continue for a week or more with every effort made to indulge in eating, drinking, and enjoyable social activities. It is also a time for family reunions, and for paying respect to ancestors and the elders. Gifts of food are made to friends, neighbors and relatives in the days before Tet. Loved ones gather for a dinner of traditional Vietnamese foods like bánh chung (a square cake made of sticky rice stuffed with beans and pork), mang (a soup of boiled bamboo shoots and flied pork) and xôi g?c (orange sticky rice). This is followed by a visit to the local pagodas. Everyone is in a rush to get a haircut, buy new clothes, spruce up their homes, visit friends, settle outstanding debts, and stock up on traditional Tet delicacies. Businesses hang festive red banners which read "Chuc Mung Nam Moi" (Happy New Year) and city streets are festooned with colored lights. Stalls spring up all over town to sell mut (candied fruits and jams), traditional cakes, and fresh fruit and flowers. Certain markets sell nothing but cone-shaped kumquat bushes. Others sell flowering peach trees, symbols of life and good fortune which people bring into their homes to celebrate the coming of spring. As vendors pour into the City with peach trees strapped to their bicycles, the streets look like moving pink forests."

We will be celebrating Tet with other families in Winston Salem again this year! I am excited to learn more about Miss Magic's birth country. AND....I am really excited that Mary is going to teach us how to make bánh chung!!! Stay posted......

I LOVE this photo of  Miss Magic and her Daddy.