Chinese New Year Party For my daughter's 7th birthday, we sent invitations using cards with beautiful Chinese prints on the covers. We went to Washington, DC's Chinese New Year Party to shoot footage of the parade to show at the party. We then went to a Chinatown bazaar and bought lanterns for decorations. The day before, I festooned the lower level of our house with yellow and red crepe paper and the lanterns. I also hung a small lantern from our mailbox to mark our house, and colorful 8x10s of NY's Chinese New Year's parade that my sister had taken. After all the kids arrived, we took them all to a Chinese restaurant for a buffet dinner. Then, back at home, we watched the Chinese parade video, along with another one about Chinese people who live (all their lives, often!) on houseboats. We served ice cream cake decorated with a dragon in the Chinese New Year colors of yellow and red. Later, I read to the kids from my favorite book of Chinese fairy tales. Then we took turns reading from children's library books on Chinese themes. It was a sleepover party, and the kids had fun sitting in the bed and trundle in their jammies and showing off their reading prowess! After breakfast the next day, I handed out cool trinkets from the Chinese bazaar as party favors. The kids got to pick from a selection of beautiful bamboo wall hangings (girls, horses, a peacock, goldfish), and they also got to choose from painted masks, bamboo umbrellas, ceramic figurines, and folding fans. The gifts were different and inexpensive.