The Spring Festival or Chinese New Year as we know the holiday here in the US began over four thousand years ago to represent the end of winter and the beginning of spring.
Traditionally we clean our homes and hold a feast to celebrate a new beginning. The dragons, lions, lights, and firecrackers became part of the celebration as people say that it all started one winter long ago when a wild beast attacked one of the villages. At first, everyone was afraid of the beast, Then they discovered what the beast feared: It did not like loud noises, the color red, or bright lights.
Spring Festival began this Monday. On Sunday, the eve of Spring Festival, Our family celebrated by participating in a community performance and having a meal with friends. Nora performed and we participated as her proud parents. Nora has been preparing for months. I am including a picture of Nora's preparation. ShuQi is applying her stage make-up. As soon as I have a chance to pull more photos off of my camera, I will post a few from the performance.
On Monday and today, we have the opportunity to continue our celebration, school has been cancelled because of snow (which is admitting not very spring like)! Nora made some Chinese Lanterns as I took down the Christmas tree (yes, it was still up). Today we plan to put up more Festival decorations as well as clean house and make soup. Cooking and soup making has become a new area of interest of Nora's as well as learning to play and practicing the piano.
On the adoption front, it looks like March 1st and March 2nd of 2006 have received referrals this month. With a log-in-date of March 29th, our referral does not look to be anytime soon. We do not expect to see referrals until after the Festival, at the end of February.
