I remember looking forward to Chinese New Year weeks in advance when I was younger, telling all of my friends at school about it, ticking off the days in my head until the big celebration. Chinese New Year meant a whole day off from school, bountiful feasts (doesn't the word "bountiful" evoke images of Thanksgiving and Squanto and all that jazz?) galore, envelopes stuffed with crisp new bills, confetti parades through the streets of Chinatown. We used to wake up early to drive into Manhattan, camp out at my grandparents' apartment on Catherine Street, and sit with our heads out of the window to look down at the action just a few flights below. My grandma would have platters full of treats and candies ready for us when we arrived, and tell me how pretty I looked in whatever red sweater my mom had forced me to jam on earlier that day. My grandpa would hug me fiercely, hand me a red envelope, and sit back down to watch his stocks on MSNBC. Later we would all go out to a big dinner and then drive back home, bellies full of noodles and pockets full of money. And when we got home I'd sit on my bed and eagerly rip open each envelope to count my loot, like I was the banker in a game of Monopoly.
It's remarkable how traditions that used to thrill and excite you as a kid inevitably lose their luster as you get older. Or maybe "luster" isn't the word I'm looking for. Maybe it's not that traditions eventually lose their luster, but rather that, over time, the gold and confetti fall away, and all you're left with is the core significance of this one day in the year. And nowadays, that means being with the people that are with me every other day in the year. My mom and my sister. I would give away all of my red envelopes just to have that one tradition every Chinese New Year.
