For much of the world, New Year celebrations are held during the first of January, filled with merrymaking, good eats, drinking and fireworks, but if you and you’re family are Chinese, chances are you don’t join in the celebration much. It’s because Chinese people base their New Year according to their lunisolar calendar, falling between the end of January and the first weeks of February. Despite the date difference, Chinese New Year is just as festive, exciting and enjoyable.

Whether you’re Chinese or not, celebrating Chinese New Year is wonderful and lucky, letting you look forward to a prosperous and happy year ahead. Why not hold a fun party for it this year? Throw a traditional Chinese New Year party for your friends and family. Here are some fun and enjoyable ideas to make this oriental celebration unforgettable.

Traditions First

Chinese always consider New Year one of their most important holidays, and they prepare for it with great care. If you want to really feel the New Year spirit, you must follow the traditions and beliefs that Chinese practice during this celebration. Here are some common ones you should remember.

• After New Year’s Day comes, don’t clean your home. You’ll take away all the good luck the New Year has brought.
• If the weather’s good, open the doors and windows of your home. This helps bring prosperity and luck for the coming year.
• Keep dustpans and brooms out of sight before the New Year strikes.
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  Wearing all red for the new year
  Think red. Wear red clothes and decorate your home with red embellishments. Red is considered lucky during the New Year.
• Don’t use black and white. For Chinese people, black symbolizes bad luck, while white is for death, and is a funeral color.
• Don’t talk about death during the first few days of the Chinese New Year.
• Keep your lights on. This will scare bad spirits and ghosts away.
• Never mention the past and all the bad things in it. It gives a negative aura for the coming year.
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  Bright lights and Chinese lanterns
  On New Year’s Eve, bathe yourself in pomelo leaves to have health for the rest of the year.
• Don’t wash your hair during the first few days of the New Year. You’ll wash away your own luck.
• Eat sweets before the New Year. This will ensure that you have a sweet year ahead of you.
• Don’t buy books. The Chinese word “book” is a homonym to the word “lose”.
• They say what you do on the first days of the New Year reflects what will happen to you for the rest of the year. For example, if you want to get prosperity and luck, gamble.
• If there are people who gossip about you, wear a new pair of slippers you bought before the New Year. This lets you “step” all over them.
• When you invite people to your home, ask them to take off their shoes and walk softly into your home for a smooth transition to the New Year.

Following these beliefs makes you feel like an authentic Chinese. Now you can move on to your New Year party basics.

Chinese-Style Invites

It’s important to let your guests know about your New Year party as soon as you can, so you’ll be assured they’ll come to your celebration. Mail the invitations at least a couple of weeks before the New Year. That’ll give everyone enough time to clear their schedules and RSVP to your event.

Most hosts send ready-made Chinese-style invitations to their guests, with beautiful and stylish Chinese prints as their designs. These can be bought from party supply stores. If you don’t want to fuss over these items, then these invites are more up your alley. All you have to do is print the details, then mail them to the guests.

If you want to add a touch of creativity to your invitations, then opt for homemade ones. These aren’t too expensive, but making them will take up some of your time. Even so, the results will be enticing and impressive. The guests will feel that you’re really giving your all for the celebration.

One easy idea is to cut out pictures of colorful Chinese celebrations from travel brochures or magazines. Put them on cardstock paper, then write something like “Experience China like never before! Come to my Chinese New Year celebration!”

Another idea you can try is to make homemade paper lanterns shaped like dragons using red construction paper. Draw Chinese signs all over them with black markers. Then, using a silver pen, write the details on the inside of the lantern.

Chinese food takeout containers also make great invitations. First, print the details on silver paper using black pen. Roll them up, tie with golden ribbon, and place inside the Chinese containers. You can add a fortune cookie for luck.

Authentic Oriental Decorations

No Chinese New Year celebration is complete without the right oriental atmosphere. You have to dress up your place so it’ll look and feel festive. It’ll make your party more lively and exciting as you welcome the New Year. Here are some fun ideas you can try.

• See if your local Chinese restaurant accommodates parties and celebrations. Not only will they provide you with good Chinese food, they’ll also have ready decorations that’ll fit your party. The staff can also help you with other decoration concerns.
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  Chinese New Year lamps are great decors
  Red is the most festive color for Chinese New Year because it symbolizes luck. Use red as the main motif for your party, then spice it up with another festive color, like silver or gold.
• Get the usual party décor, like streamers, confetti and balloons in the color motif you chose. These are inexpensive, but very flexible.
• Put up traditional Chinese wall hangings with words of wisdom and phrases. Chinese character cutouts for words like luck, happiness, and prosperity will also look great.
• Put plants, like lucky bamboo, around the place.
• Buy or make traditional Chinese paper lanterns, and line them around the venue. They’ll bring luck and light to your celebration.
• String some flower garlands, then put them around the table, mantel and around the door.
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  Cool flower decorations for your party
  Fresh flowers always look good at any party. Get flower arrangements with chrysanthemums, peach blossoms and kumquat plants in them. These symbolize longevity, luck and prosperity respectively.
• Tangerines and oranges are very significant for Chinese folks because they symbolize happiness. Get clear glass bowls and put several oranges and lemons in them. Use these as table centerpieces.
• Get plain red tablecloths for your tables. Those with Chinese prints on them are also great. To add a sparkly look, sprinkle gold glitter or confetti on the surfaces.
• Make a Tray Of Togetherness. This is a lovely centerpiece that consists of eight dried fruits that symbolize blessings for the year to come. First, get an octagonal, or round tray. Divide it into eight. For each division, put lychee nut (strong family), lotus seeds (fertility), coconut (unity), candied melon (good health), longan (many good sons), kumquats (prosperity), peanuts (longevity) and red melon seed (joy). Place it in the middle of the buffet table.
• Light some incense and put them in tall vases. They’ll bring a sweet scent to your party.
• Find a poster of the Chinese zodiac and place it on your wall. A Chinese calendar is also great wall décor you can use.

Dressing For The New Year

The wonderful thing about Chinese New Year celebrations is they can either be very casual or strictly formal. Oftentimes, hosts don’t specify dress codes, but if you want your party to be special, you can ask them to wear something that’ll suit the holiday. You can ask them to come in red or any crimson clothing, since these are lucky. Tell them not to wear white or black.

If you want your party to be extremely fashionable, here’s one good idea: why not ask everyone to come in Chinese costume? They can wear traditional Chinese-style robes and cheongsams, paired with Chinese slippers. The guys can pin fake pigtails on their head, while the women can put their hair up in buns and secure them with chopsticks. Seeing everyone mingling in oriental costumes is very unforgettable. It’ll make your New Year more festive and special.

Fun New Year Activities

Eating and socializing are both fun, but if these are all your guests do at your party, then they’ll get bored easily. Make sure you prepare delightful activities that’ll keep them happy and preoccupied during your celebration. It’s a fun way to welcome the new year ahead.

• Playing Mah-Jongg - This is one of the most ancient games Chinese and non-Chinese people love to play. It’s a game involving skill, calculation and strategy, and your guests will surely have fun with this competition. Hold a tournament, and the one who emerges the winner gets a special prize.
• Chopsticks Tutorial – You can’t be Chinese without knowing how to use chopsticks! For friends who have difficulty using these eating utensils, have a mini-tutorial. Demonstrate the proper way of snapping and pivoting chopsticks and how to pick up all sorts of food (noodles, dumplings, pork pieces) using these.

Don’t know how to use chopsticks? Here’s a ideo to show you how.

• Where’s The Zodiac? - You need two decks of Zodiac cards in two different colors for this game. Before the party, hide one set of cards around the venue. Then distribute the other to the guests. When you give the signal, they must find the pair of the card they picked out. Those who find theirs at a given time limit wins special prizes.
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  Red chinese money envelopes
  Making Money Envelopes -This is a quiet, sit-down activity everyone will enjoy. Provide materials including red paper, glue, tape, and coloring markers, paint or pen. Everyone can create their own version of Chinese money envelopes.
• The Fortune Cookie Challenge - Everyone loves fortune cookies, and for this activity, you need many pieces. First, pick three to five players for this game, and let them stand around a large bowl of fortune cookies. At a given time limit, then must crack open a cookie, read the fortune and eat the cookie pieces. When time’s up, the person who ate the most cookies wins.
• Fireworks Display - Celebrate the evening with a bang by having a fireworks show during the party. You can time it to when the clock strikes 12. Just make sure you properly handle them, and that the kids don’t touch them. Have a bucket of water nearby, just in case. You should also check if it’s permitted in your area.

Enjoying Chinese Cuisine

Chinese is known to be one of the most diverse and most delicious of all the cuisines around the world, and since it’s a special holiday, your guests will be expecting extravagant, satisfying and delicious dishes to fill their hungry tummies. You should prepare a well-planned banquet to satiate their taste.

For the New Year, it’s best to serve lucky food items like mandarin oranges, noodles, whole fish, dumplings and chicken. If you don’t feel like spending too much time in the kitchen, you can simply order from a Chinese restaurant or ask them to cater your event, but if you think you can manage, then whip up an array of dishes the Chinese will be proud of. Here are some dishes you can have.

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  Delicious rice cakes, Neen Gow
  Neen Gow – This is the most important cake eaten during the Chinese New Year. It’s made from brown candy called peen tong and glutinous rice flour. When cooked, it’s dipped in egg, then pan-fried. The result is a sticky and chewy sweet cake.
• Peking Duck – A delicious duck dish, known as one of the most popular dishes of China. It’s often eaten with spring onions, pancakes and sweet noodle sauce or hoisin sauce.

Here are basic tips in cooking the Peking Duck.

• Turnip Cake – Made with Chinese turnips, rice flour, and sauces. It’s consistency is closer to bread than cake, and it’s served all year round in dimsum restaurants.
• Yangchow Fried Rice – Chinese-style fried rice cooked in the egg and mixed with pork, vegetable and shrimp.
• Yu Sheng (Chinese New Year Salad) – No Chinese New Year feast is complete without this. It’s a symbolic colorful salad made from raw fish and vegetables and it symbolizes renewal of life and prosperity. The most fun part of eating this is tossing and mixing the ingredients. To make sure you get good luck in the next year, you must cry out “Lo-hei!” (meaning “mix it up!”, but also sounds like “keep prospering!”) while using chopsticks to mix the ingredients. The higher they are tossed, the more prosperous the next year becomes.

Tasty little turnip cakes

Yummy Yang Chow fried rice

Delicious Yu Sheng salad

• Spring Rolls – Delightful appetizers, filled with black mushroom, shredded pork, garlic chives and shrimp.
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  A mouth-watering bowl of Kung pao chicken
  Chow Mein – Delicious noodles stir-fried with shrimp, vegetable bits and pork.
• Kung Pao Chicken – A spicy Szechuan dish made with peanuts and chili pepper.
• Mapo Tofu – A famous Szechuan dish. It combines bean curd and beef together in a bean-based, chili sauce.
• Pork And Shrimp Siu Mai – Steamed dim sum made with ground pork and shrimp, and placed in a light, filmy wrapper.
• Stir-Fried Bok Choy – Healthy Chinese greens fried in olive oil.

For the drinks, serve traditional Chinese tea or beer. Red-colored beverages like cherry or strawberry juice and red punch are also okay. For more classy drinks, red wine and Bloody Marys are also all right.

Don’t forget the dessert. Make sure you have plenty of fortune cookies at your banquet. You can also serve almond lychee or Mochi, which is a type of Chinese rice cake.

Lastly, serve the food with chopsticks, so your guests will really feel the Chinese celebration.

Chinese Party Favors

The celebration is over and the New Year has arrived. It’s now time for your guests to leave your party. Before they go, give them a little something to remember the fun time they had. Give out party favors that’ll remind them of the wonderful year ahead.

One gift idea is to give out wooden chopsticks with designs engraved on their surface. Wrap these in red cloth and tie with gold ribbons. Attach a thank-you note to it.

Chinese money packets with gold symbols are also great giveaways. Put “lucky money” inside, along with your thank-you card.

You can also give a stuffed toy or figurine that represents the animal of the year. For example, if it’s the year of the Pig, give them cute pig stuffed toys.

Try these ideas the next time this holiday comes. You’ll have a great time saying “Gung Hey Fat Choy!” with your family and friends.