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As I said last year ... it's no secret that I'm a Chinese New Year enthusiast. I mean ... you don't study Chinese language from the age of 12 without getting a little joy out of celebrating what is now more commonly known as the Lunar New Year.
Me, age 17, preforming YangGui Fei Zui Jiu in TianJin, China.
Basically, I'm one of the hottest consorts of Chinese history,
but I have recently lost favor with the Emperor, and am debating suicide.
LOL! So not me in real life.
So, what's an extra mom like me to do in the year of the pig? Well ... let me tell you!
First, let's talk about recycling. I'm eco friendly like that. LOL! Last year, I mentioned I had purchased these:
Unfortunately, I didn't get to re-use these dress up pieces this year, as I found out last second that my son's new classroom - he's moved up to the preschooler room, hooray! - is much more than 12 kids, and I only had 12 hats and a handful of small sized dresses. Darn! (In case you'd like to buy them yourself, here's the link for mandarin hats and dresses.)
Had I known sooner about this head count change, I may have opted to buy a few more hats ... but a miscommunication left me thinking he had 14 kids in his group, when the actual number was 25. If you compound a 10 hat increase with an additional need to purchase more take home treasures, etc ... well ... I wasn't really in the mood to go buy more hats. Maybe next year, kids!
Step two in recycling from 2018 - I once again sent a kid friendly book about the New Year that my son's teachers could read in class:
A book about traditional celebration practices by Grace Lin
Step three in recycling from 2018 - coloring sheets! I did, however, give this a year appropriate refresh:
Ok, recycling aside, let's talk the good stuff ... PRESENTS! Because, what is a holiday celebration without a gift?!
Last year, you may recall, I purchased a set of 24 of these gift bags for $3.99:
Since that seller has totally sold out, and doesn't appear to be relisting on Amazon any time soon, I decided to give these bags a shot instead:
Since these gift bags were for the kids, inside went a zodiac animal appropriate finger puppet just like last year:
And for the teachers, an assortment of adult appropriate goodies - one each of a little stone pig, a scarf (design A, design B) and a chocolate zodiac gold coin from World Market:
I had originally purchased some zippered coin pouches for the teachers to put their gifts in, but when it came down to time to wrap the presents ... whoops! The scarves were so surprisingly huge that they didn't fit. Luckily I had some red tissue and gold foil mylar I could substitute instead. That actually worked out well, because my son enjoyed helping me place the gifts on the tissue, and handing me ribbons to tie the parcels shut.
Oh! One last touch. Each of the gifts was cinched shut with a tag applied outside, just for extra "informational" measure.
The end result looked a little like this:
So there you have it. Another year of Lunar celebrations on the books.
And yes, I may have already started shopping for 2020 inspo ... I mean, I am extra, after all!
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