Write@Home
Winter 2015

Celebration

Red Paper Lanterns

The biggest celebration in my country, Vietnam, is Lunar New Year, which is also call Tet. This is usually at the end of January or during the month of February. Every year, a lot of people travel back to their hometowns to spend this special time together. In my country people usually prepare 1 or 2 weeks before the New Year. You can see people on the sidewalk selling traditional flowers, decorations for the house and all kinds of beautiful envelopes. Our traditional flowers are yellow apricot flowers in the south and pink peach flowers in the north. Bánh Trung and Bánh Tét (cylindric glutinous rice cakes) are our traditional foods. We also have other foods to eat on this day such as roasted watermelon seeds, dried fruits, meats stewed with eggs in coconut juice and bamboo with braised meats.

About 4 years ago, I traveled back to my country Vietnam to enjoy the Lunar New year with my whole family. We went to shop some decorations and flowers for the house. As we walked to buy all those flowers, people turned on the new year music, and I felt the spirit of this special time. We also cleaned up the whole house which means pushing all the bad and unhappy out to bring all the new and happy in. On the first day of the New Year, all my nieces and nephews wished me luck and I handed out the lucky money to them. After that we all wished all the adults best of luck and health. When we were all done, we all ate our traditional foods and played some board games and card games. It was so much fun that I did not want this day to end.

Lunar New Year is my favourite holiday of all because all my family members gather together. Trust me if you travel to my country on this day, you will not be disappointed.