瑞龙送福

The Year of the Water Dragon blasted in swiftly but surely. The long weekend of continuous enjoyment, festive feasting, family bonding and incessant chatting created a post-holiday shroud of moodiness when everyone started school and work in the middle of the week!

For us, the fun started on Saturday, as written in a previous posting. To be followed by even more conviviality the next few days...

Sunday (除夕)
Being the early birds in the family, Big Bee and I sneaked off to Holland Village in the morning for a little mother-daughter date, and to shop around for Big Bee's Chinese New Year clothes (Little Bee already had aplenty). With Big Bee in her tweens, she prefers to select and choose her clothes, so this was a wonderful shopping outing for both of us to spend some quiet, quality time together! We had fantastic bonding time over breakfast and shopping, before Hubby and Little Bee joined us much later.

We then went to the plant nursery to immerse ourselves in the dense festive ambience amidst an opulence of vividly psychedelic blooms! We bought 2 big pots of orchids and tangerines (橘子) for my parents as well as 2 big bunches of ethereal pussy willows and a small pot of 橘子 for ourselves.

The Bees love decorating pussy willows, so we spent a good part of the early afternoon beautifying and sprucing up our pussy willow and other plants - adorning them in auspicious red and gold trinkets and angpows!

Eventually, after embellishing the whole house with festive decor, we set off early for our reunion dinner with my in-laws at Teochew City in Centrepoint. We arrived at 6pm, and it was surreal to see almost the whole of Orchard Road in darkness, with most shops and large department stores closed!

Dinner was meaningful and scrumptious. The Bees got to spend time with 2 of their adoring great-grandmothers. How rare can that be!?

At night, after the Bees slept, Hubby and I once again - like so many years before - snuggled in front of the TV, watching the Channel 8 Lunar New Year TV festivities and revelled in our Chinese traditions.

Monday (初一）
The day dawned balmy and sunshiny. The mood at home was cheery and jaunty. We set off in our brand new clothes for a whole day of family visits - from my parents' home in the morning to my maternal uncle's house where all our maternal relatives had gathered for decades, and where we cousins had so much fun bonding once again. Followed by Hubby's parents' place and a couple more of Hubby's aunts' before we called it a long day past 10pm!

As I grow older, I love the fact that we have so many relatives to visit, and simply appreciate that having strong family ties are gloriously blissful. And I think the Bees had enjoyed all these varied visits to different relatives' homes too!

Tuesday (初二）
We spent the morning making fluffy pancakes with blueberries. The Bees were helping me to sift the flour, pour in the ingredients and mix the dough. They are becoming the able little chefs that their Mummy never was!

After a leisurely early afternoon, we received our first visitors at home - our immediate families! The Bees were really excited as they love visitors at home, and I could relax a little while they were entertained by all their doting grandparents, uncle and aunts. We then set forth to my brother's house where we chilled out in his cosy apartment, before settling for the dinner (and the rest of the evening) at my paternal uncle's house, together with all my cousins and relatives. Had such a wonderful time chatting with them!

2 days, 7 families - this Chinese New Year was too brief and fleeting, swirling out of our lives before we can yell out "pause"!

But, for now, I am thankful that we have all 15 days in the lunar calendar to continue our merry celebrations, joyous feasting and mirthful bonding!