What’s Your Sign? Chinese New Year Party

My grand­moth­er’s birth­day is at the end of the year and due to a com­bi­na­tion of work and hol­i­day crazi­ness, I promised her a big­ger cel­e­bra­tion in con­junc­tion with Chi­nese New Year, which this year falls on Feb­ru­ary 10th with the com­mence­ment of the Year of the Snake. Since my moth­er’s side of the fam­i­ly is from Chi­na, I thought it would be mean­ing­ful to com­mem­o­rate my grand­moth­er’s {belat­ed} big day, as well as the start of the Lunar Year, with a savory and sweet spread!

For the table back­drop of our Chi­nese New Year par­ty, I made a paper fan wall, inspired by ori­en­tal fans and umbrel­las, and accent­ed it with a tra­di­tion­al drag­on pup­pet. The table was cen­tered by cup­cakes and top­pers, based on the Chi­nese Zodi­ac. Some oth­er sweets includ­ed “Longevi­ty Peach” steamed buns and “Pros­per­ous Orange Mac­arons” dis­played in gold ingot cups.

The main dish­es includ­ed some of our fam­i­ly favorites, as well as sym­bol­ic offer­ings, served on fun, whim­si­cal serv­ing plat­ters, along with some tra­di­tion­al chi­na. Red and gold were preva­lent in the col­or scheme, but the infu­sion of many sup­ple­men­tal col­ors added a play­ful­ness to the dis­play. With some adorable clip art from Elsy Design, I cre­at­ed some food labels, held up by minia­ture take-out boxes.

Since oranges and tan­ger­ines sym­bol­ize pros­per­i­ty and hap­pi­ness, I incor­po­rat­ed them into the decor by fill­ing hur­ri­cane vas­es with the fruit and top­ping them off with a Chi­nese fire­crack­er push pop!

The tra­di­tion­al red envelopes not only served as vibrant decor, but we were also for­tu­nate to be gift­ed with these pack­ets, typ­i­cal­ly giv­en out at cel­e­bra­tions and espe­cial­ly dur­ing Chi­nese New Year, con­tain­ing mon­e­tary presents!

I am so very for­tu­nate to be able to teach my daugh­ter more about her her­itage and expose her to Chi­nese cul­ture and tra­di­tions, as well as share and cel­e­brate these spe­cial occa­sions with four gen­er­a­tions in our fam­i­ly! We had a fab­u­lous and deli­cious time and wish you a sen­sa­tion­al and stu­pen­dous Year of the Snake! Hap­py New Lunar Year! ♥

Merci Beaucoup!

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