Official Chinese New Year party

Never in my life have I acknowledged (let alone CELEBRATE!) Chinese New Year like I have this year! Seriously! This is like the 3rd Chinese post in a month!

I couldn't resist documenting an OFFICIAL Chinese New Year party that we were invited to at our friends, the Wangs, from our ward...

Even this little guy, (my friend, Olivia's grandson), was dressed for the big event!

There was food galore! All different kinds of things like Chinese curry, Korean kimchee, fried rice, salmon, sushi, Korean barbeque, just to name a few...



I asked Brian earlier on in the day to go to Wegman's to pick up a chocolate cake for us to take with us to the dinner (along with one and a half dozen duck eggs I've been collecting to give as a hostess gift (Chinese people love to eat duck eggs...yuck!)





When he came back with this *$#@#* butt ugly concoction, I almost died! It wasn't his fault. After all, I just told him to pick up a chocolate cake. But at least the flowers could have been RED?! For all I knew, blue represented death or something like that in the Chinese culture, and I didn't want to take a chance. So-- I panicked and returned the cake to avoid having to do the walk of shame into their house...

What I exchanged it for was soooo much more of what I had in mind...First of all, it was twice the size of the other one and looked more the part...

I copied off the Chinese characters for "Happy New Year" and cut it out making sure to back it with wax paper so the frosting didn't seep through...

I was so pleased with the result!

After feasting, (and I mean FEASTING!) we settled in for some games...

Ellie got to sing along to the karaoke machine--(have you ever seen that SNL sketch where Tonto, Tarzan, and Frankenstein are singing?--that would best describe how she sounded singing "Old MacDonald". (Nerve grating alert!)

But then, the fun really started when Heather and I pulled out the big guns and started singing "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina!"--(the tune for everything but the chorus seemed to elude us)--

Would you believe this is my first karaoke experience?

What was most funny, and I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of it, was the scenery that was being shown while the words of the song were coming up on the screen. It was so random, like scenes from auto shows, and cheesy Asian women splashing in the water, etc. I'm guessing it was made in the 70's, which added an extra element of humor and tackiness...

All in all, it was a memorable night...It's so fun having such diverse friendships...

Gung Hey Fat Choy!