Happy Winter Solstice

Today, the Chinese celebrate Winter Solstice or Dong Zhi in mandarin. It is also my nephew Benjamin's birthday today whose birthday falls on this chinese festival every year. Winter Solstice is the day where families get together and celebrate a good meal while not forgetting to have Tang Yuan. Tang Yuan is made of glutinous rice flour balls which symbolise reunion, serve together with sweet soup.

Like most years since I got married, we always go back to my hubby's hometown in Seremban to celebrate by just having a good meal and Tang Yuan. This year since it falls on a weekday, so we already celebrated it earlier last Saturday. My mother in-law cooked up a storm and I think we had about 8 dishes of food that day! Sorry no picture because as usual I didn't want them to think I'm a freak. LOL. So after that scrumptious dinner, Elizabeth kept pestering us to do something. And what is that mysterious thing you might ask. The story goes like this. That Saturday morning, my hubby saw a stall selling sky lanterns at the market and he bought it. I thought sky lanterns were usually released on Chap Goh Mei which falls on the 15th day of the chinese lunar year. But hubby thought it would be nice to release it on Winter Solstice just for the fun of it. It would be fun for the children too. Which is why Elizabeth kept pestering us to start releasing the lantern right after dinner because she was excited. So this year the celebration had something out of the ordinary for us with the sky lanterns or some call them wish lanterns. 

Hubby bought 3 lanterns but we only released 2 on that day. Each lantern had a special wish printed on it. It was a fun experience for the children. They were so excited to see it go up into the sky. Joseph was having fun running under the lantern while we light up the fire and waited for the lantern to swell. He made my heart jumped out of my chest many times because I was so worried his hair will catch fire! *shakes my head*

As mentioned earlier, Winter Solstice day is also my nephew Benjamin's birthday. As I'm typing here, my mum, sister and nephews are on their way up to KL. So tonight, we will be celebrating Benjamin's birthday. Happy Birthday Benjamin! You're a big boy already and here's wishing you a good life ahead and be a good boy ok? Happy Winter Solstice or Dong Zhi Jie Kuai Le!

My Christmas holidays begins tomorrow, so I won't be posting till my holidays are over. Hence, wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year filled with peace, joy and good tidings!

*Picture courtesy of knowingfood.com*
I didn't take a picture of my mother in-law's tang yuan so here's a picture closest to how hers looked like.

My hubby attaching the candle on the wire. 

The sky lantern is lighted up!

My excited children and my sister in-law waiting for the lantern to heat up.

The wish on the lantern is "Xin Xiang Shi Cheng" right? Hey! My chinese still can pakai lah. Not bad, not bad. But erm..what is the meaning ah?

A pic without cropping just to show how high the sky lantern was and how it looked from where I stand. Up, up and away! Bye bye sky lantern!