A late post. Chinese New Year was a few days ago but I am still in a very festive mood. Not much cooking but lots of eating and eating and eating………..which is not such a bad thing if I still don’t feel so gorged from Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and birthdays and weddings in between.

When I was growing up I like CNY best for the hong pao — red envelopes with money inside for good luck, given by adults. Now that I am not so young any more, I have become, as dictated by tradition, the giver. No complaints. Nothing delights me more than seeing my younger relatives break into large grins when I hand them the red packets. The best part is when one of them opens it right in front of your eyes and asks everyone else if they have all received the same amount. Yea, I better be fair.

Apart from the gift/money giving, there is also the spiritual side to attend to. Every year to ensure a prosperous 365 days (or more for leap years), my mom would offer all kinds of food at the temple, to deceased relatives, and to the house altar. And each year she would set up a separate table in front of the house and place all kinds of sumptuous fruits, cooked chicken, duck, pork, hard-boiled eggs, dried noodles, mushrooms, seaweed, tofu, all kinds of canned fruits, canned vegetables, steamed sweet buns, and many other Chinese sweet and savory delicacies. All for what my mother refers to as the “good brothers” or more specifically, the wandering spirits. It is believed that these relative-less spirits must be made happy and appeased or they will cause trouble for family members.

Someone once told me that once you start making offerings to the “good brothers”, you have to do it every year or “things will become catastrophic”. I am one of those people who like to scoff at superstitions but somehow I fear this one. To avoid any catastrophe, I simply just don’t make any offerings to these spirits. Even as I write this, I realize how illogical the situation is. If I don’t make them happy, they will cause trouble. And if I do and forget to do so next year, they will, literally, come back to haunt me.  Makes sense? No. But one doesn’t question tradition, do they?

But like every holiday, the best part is getting all family members together again. The laughter, the sharing, the food, the traditions (that we may or may not understand), and just being with the people we love and love us most. It’s just a time for celebration despite the bad economy. Or maybe partly because of it, we all just want to be together and count our blessings. Now I understand why Mom wants all to be happy. “Good brothers” included.