Homemade Decorations

Each year we would buy some decorations for Chinese New Year. At the same time, we would make some ourselves. We would make angpow lanterns and angpow fishes and string them up to hang. We would clip angpow papers together and hang those up on our plants. Just adding a little red colour to the plants really makes the place look rather festive.

The kids love to make the decorations. They had been begging me to let them make but we could not find the time. Finally, yesterday, I managed to squeeze in a little bit of time. They were absolutely delighted. "Mummy, I love to do this. I enjoy doing this so much." said the girl while the boy sat and cut, folded and stapled to his heart's content. There were bits of angpow paper and staples everywhere. It was so messy... but as long as they are enjoying themselves....

Finally, the girl completed two strings of lanterns and wanted to bring it to school to decorate her class. "Teacher said we can win the class cleanliness contest if we decorate our classroom nicely." she said. The boy wanted to bring his tangled mess of lanterns to school to decorate his classroom too. He almost cried when I said he could not "Aren't they nice mummy?" His sister and I quickly assured him that they were really creative and very good for someone his age. He had manage to make the lanterns all by himself too, the folding and stapling together. However in his jest he stapled a whole row and circle of lanterns together. I am not sure the teacher will know how to hang that up. lol.

Poor thing. I hope I did not hurt his feelings too much. He really did do a good job, cutting, folding and stapling all by himself. Unfortunately I was busy with hubby trying to fix some lights so I could not sit and guide him step by step. I just let him do whatever he liked and he stapled all the lanterns together in a circle.(sort of)  :)

In the end, I spruced up last year's homemade decorations and gave those to him for bringing to school. Today each of them carried a bag of their homemade decorations to school proudly to present to their respective class teachers. The boy wanted to bring some angpow packets to give to teacher too. So I allowed him to choose three packs.

The girl said "Will teacher know I made them all by myself? Maybe she will think that you helped me? Maybe she won't like it? Other people brought very nice big decorations that they bought to school. How muummy?" I told her that homemade ones are very nice, even more so when she made it herself. I hope that the teacher will appreciate it too. Last year the ones she made were thrown aside by the teacher and never used because she had brought it too late and the decorations were already up. "This year I must bring them early, mummy."

Before bedtime, they were begging me to allow them to make more decorations again soon. I surely hope we can find the time, with their mad schedule and our own pre-Chinese New Year rush. :)