On January 29th, we celebrated Lunar New Year. It is one of the biggest celebrations in Vietnam. Some people call it Chinese New Year’s, but I prefer Lunar New Year as most Asian countries celebrate it as well. We usually celebrate during the first 4 main days: New Year’s Eve, New Years Day, and the two consecutive days afterwards. The first day is for the dad’s side, the second day is for the mom’s side and the third day is to celebrate with friends and family. We all go to work or school most of the time during the year so this is one of the only times that families can gather together to celebrate. We do a lot of fun activities during this time of year, and those activities often symbolize the celebration, like specific cakes, dishes, dresses, and games.

The dress me and my friend wore last week as part of our celebration is called ao dai. We wanted to showcase aspects of Lunar New Year at school.

We believe in our ancestors so we always cook food on New Year’s Eve to worship them. There are two kinds of flowers that we use, yellow apricot flower for the south and peach blossom for the north. We usually go to either the church or temple to get good luck for the New Year as we believe that if the first day of the year goes well, then the whole year will be good!