Valentine's Day this year was celebrated with a Chinese New Year lunch gathering at our place. Well, it's always nice to have a few friends over during the festive season to promote/generate some positive energy in your home.
One of the main concerns I had was keeping 7 children entertained as we don't have an abundant stock of children's toys. I devised a few games to be played, which I know came to a surprise to some people!
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| This year's Yu Sheng ot Yee Sang, the 'Chinese salad' to be tossed during Chinese New Year. |
This year's 14th of February was also the 7th day of the lunar calendar, and better known as 'Human's Day'. It is commonly referred to as 'everyone's birthday' and rightfully, the day for the Prosperity Toss (of the Chinese salad).
This year's version excluded coloured strips of yam and decorated with segments of mandarin oranges. (Thanks Valerie and Wen Hui for your assistance!)
The kids ended up having lots of fun running around our yard, playing with cut grass and pulling weeds. Had we known weeding would keep them happily occupied, we would have set them loose in the yard sooner!
We decided that since they didn't mind being outside (although I felt it was a tad bit warm), we played Pass The Parcel.
Now my childhood version of Pass The Parcel requires the person who gets the parcel to complete the task s/he uncovers on the paper. But the Australian version involves a prize uncovered at every level!
So you can imagine how gutted they were that they were playing my version. Hehehe.
Examples of some of the tasks at hand, illustrations provided by the hubs because I can't draw for nuts.
At the end of it was a bag of chocolates to share among themselves, which the kids did so without complaints.
One of the tasks of Pass The Parcel involved everyone receiving a cookie, which was the heart shaped cookies I baked and iced 2 days earlier.
The next game was a treasure hunt involving the small owls I had made as a 'door gift' for the kids. However, I had made a mistake with the variety of colours - where 6 girls are involved, it's best to have more pink options available.
Earlier on I had subtly asked what were their favourite colours and only 3 chose the colours I had made for them. One girl burst into tears because she wanted a pink one, so another girl was made to give hers up in order to appease her tears. (I was earlier informed that her favourite colour was red!)
ANYWAY, I've just completed a replacement pink owl for the nice girl. She was a champ for not succumbing to tantrums whatsoever so I might just make her an extra something.
The first game the kids played was Pin Olaf's nose. It was a nice ice-breaker game which got all the kids intrigued at having a go. I'm mentioning this here just so I can keep this picture of the drawing as a memento!
Just for the record, this year's cookie stash is a bit of a disappointment for me. I tried 4 new recipes and only 1 turned out excellent (in terms of taste). I also made my 2 usual ones, peanut cookies and butter cookies which lacked something ... focus? love? Hahaha I have no idea!
Hope everyone else is enjoying the Chinese New Year festivities. We have one more gathering to attend this Sunday which will mark the end of binge eating sessions! :)
