Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy New Year!

Chinese New Year marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring.  It is celebrated with family reunions, and marked as a time to honour deities as well as ancestors. It is a time to thank the gods for their blessings. The New Year was celebrated on this past February 10th.

Traditionally, families make great preparations for the changing of the year. Prior to the new year, families settle their debts and purchase new clothes, houses are cleaned and feasts are prepared.

It is common to see homes filled with flowers and fruit, including oranges, tangerines, and pomeloes. Their colours symbolize good luck and joy. Flower blossoms symbolize longevity and courage.

Some Chinese believe that if flowers blossom on New Year's Day good fortune will be theirs for the next year. Trays filled of candied melon, coconut, lotus seed  and watermelon seed are served.

Seven days into the New Year everyone adds a year to their age regardless of when they were born.  In traditional China individual birthdays were not considered as important as this New Year's date.

Here are wishes for growth, good health, abundance and togetherness, happiness, love and prosperity.

May everything be according to your wishes. Happy New Year! Gung Hay Fat Choy!

2013 Year of the Snake

Today is day 24 of the thirty day writing challenge (February edition) as arranged and hosted by Nicky and Mike over at WeWorkForCheese.com. Go check out their site to see who else is participating and read some more great stories.

Cabin in the Woods

What a better way to spend the days off before New Year's eve than away from the city and surrounded by snow? If you said surrounded by beaches, than I don't think that you and I are on the same page at the moment. Nonetheless, we took a drive 90 minutes north of Montreal to spend time with family. Far away from the big city filled, clean air and huge mounds of snow ideal for snow-shoeing, tobogganing and skiing. All and all a very relaxing time. Happy new year!

Highway 15-North outside Val Morin

The road to Sainte-Agathe

Boat house by the lake

Snowbound Cottage

With 80 centimetres of snow (32 inches) in just over a week, forget about white Christmas it will be a white 2013. This will be enough snow to keep the ski hills covered until spring.

Snow covered trees

Tom Waits New Year's Eve

Tom Waits Bad As Me

Who else but Tom Waits would have Keith Richards as a guest vocalist? I love Tom Waits' early albums, the jazzy bluesy folksy tin pan alley stuff. In the post 1982 era my favourite has to be Bone Machine. In honour of the day that is New Year's Eve, here is Tom Waits' New Year's Eve, from his terrific 2011 release Bad As Me.

New Year's Eve

Tanya at Tanya Says wrote a nostalgic piece on the New Year's celebration. I am not so sentimental. My most common memory of New Year's past, since about the age of twelve years old, consists of being sick in bed every other year. For some reason, for year upon year, the flu, a stomach virus, a sinus infection or something else would knock me on my ass a couple days before the festivities. I do not get sick often - December being the exception.

Happy New Year!

Three years ago I started getting the flu shot. So far so good. This year I came down with a cold at the early part of the month. And I can now see the finish line. I have to avoid sick people for a few more days and I will have made it to New Year's, unscathed.

New Year's is a reason or an excuse to celebrate. I don't have any emotional ties to the night. It used to be a requirement to go out and party as hard as possible. All I really need is two things. Friends and an alcoholic beverage or two.

New Year's is a time for celebration, a dawning of a new year, a cause to gather with friends and family, out with the old and in with the new. A time to air out old grievances, forget and move forward, a time to wash away the ills and wish for only the good. And what a better way to wash it away than with alcohol?

People keep asking me what am I doing for New Years. The correct question is where are you going for New Years. What am I doing is a forgone conclusion. I am drinking. Where am I drinking on New years? Not sure yet. I know what I will be drinking with friends. Where? Doesn't matter.

One time, about 10 or so years back, the clock struck midnight, everyone hugged and kissed. I called my parents to wish them a Happy New Year. Their response was, "Why are you calling?"

So maybe there is a reason I am not so sentimental for New Year's past.

Bonne Annee!

5771

5771 already? Where do the years go? I could swear we were just talking about the brand new decade in 5760. Time flies.
I mean, was it really in 5759 that Seinfeld was taken off the air? It doesn't feel like twelve years ago.

Could it be in 5762 that Barry Bonds hit 73 homeruns? 

Kurt Cobain tragically left us sixteen years ago in 5755. No. Really?

Twenty-seven years ago, in 5744, that MASH ended its run on prime time TV?

These were the top ten singles from 5761.

1	Breathe	Faith Hill
2	Smooth	Santana featuring Rob Thomas
3	Maria Maria	Santana featuring The Product G&B
4	I Wanna Know	Joe
5	Everything You Want	Vertical Horizon
6	Say My Name	Destiny's Child
7	I Knew I Loved You	Savage Garden (tie)
8	Amazed	Lonestar
9	Bent	Matchbox Twenty
10	He Wasn't Man Enough	Toni Braxton

Happy New Year.