Chinese/Lunar New Year 2024
Do you know what Chinese New Year is? It is also known as Lunar New Year or as the Spring Festival. The date for Chinese New Year always changes as it follows the lunisolar calendar and starts on the second new moon that appears after the winter solstice. This year Chinese New Year starts on Saturday, February 10th, and lasts for 15 days.
There are many customs associated with Lunar New Year, much of which revolves around love, and we call nonviolence “love in action.” This is a wonderful time to appreciate all that we have had, have, what is to come for the future.
Here are THREE ACTIVITIES…
Activity 1: Make LONGEVITY NOODLES from scratch!
It is a tradition to eat noodles for Lunar New Year to represent the wish for a long, happy, and healthy life.
Nonviolence begins inside every one of us, and how better to do that than by putting a meal that you made from scratch into your body for that needed Person Power! ☺
Ingredients:
2 eggs
½ teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of milk or milk substitute
1 ½ cups of all purpose flour
Mix eggs, salt, and milk, then stir in the flour slowly, you may add a bit more flour until it is only slightly sticky.
Roll it out on a floured surface until it is very thin.
Use a sharp knife to cut out the long noodles, as wide as your fingers (or more, or less!)
Boil water and once the water is boiled, drop the noodles in for 2-3 minutes.
Serve with any topping you like.
Activity 2: Lucky Red Envelopes!
Red envelopes also known as hongbao are traditional gifts to share with family and friends. Usually, it is adults and they give money to younger people. But did you know you can also give these red envelopes to others, and you do not even have to give money, you can give anything like a drawing or poem, or anything you can fit into the envelope that you would like to give.
Materials
Paper (red but you can color it red if you do not have red)
Cut the paper in half, you can make two envelopes out of each paper.
Take one of the new cut sheets and bring each side into the middle so that they touch, or almost overlap - So now it is like a tube, but now flatten it and tape along the overlap.
Fold one side over just a bit, tape it. So that it is sealed closed on one side.
Fill it with whatever gifts you want to draw or find and if you want
Fold over the top and tape it closed and give it to someone.
Tada!
Activity 3: 2024 Year of the Dragon
Traditionally the dragon is a symbol of strength, power, prosperity, and good luck.
On the envelopes you have created, or, on another sheet of paper:
Draw a dragon.
Draw what you would look like, if you were a dragon.
Draw your family as a family of dragons!
You are powerful like a dragon and you can choose that power to make yourself stronger through nourishing yourself with foods you make and creating gifts for others. There is so much you can do!
