Lantern Festival and "Togetherness"

“Today is the last day of Spring Festival. You must cook yuanxiao for the children and light lanterns,” my mother-in-law called from China to remind me.

Spring Festival is the fifteen-day period in which the new lunar year is celebrated. Lantern Festival (or Yuanxiao Festival) marks the last day of the celebrations. At dusk on this day, families gather together to eat sweet or savory sticky rice balls (yuanxiao), light beautiful lanterns, and celebrate “togetherness” (tuanyuan). 

“Hao Aiyi (Youngest Aunt) waited in line to buy yuanxiao for four hours yesterday. That store on Huaihai Road (a famous commercial street in Shanghai) has the freshest yuanxiao in all of Shanghai.” She continued,  “And then she went to Yu Garden to buy a rabbit-shaped lantern for Da Yima (Eldest Aunt).”

Before we hung up, I told her that I’d try my best to share Lantern Festival with the kids.

How did this holiday sneak up on me?  It shouldn’t be a surprise; Lantern Festival happens every year at the same time—fifteen days after Chinese New Year. But here I was, again, ten minutes before bedtime looking at a package of freezer-burned yuanxiao. Memories of Mid-Autumn Festival came flooding back. 

I felt guilty for missing yet another Chinese holiday, but more than that, I felt sadness that all the yuanxiao in the world couldn’t bring my in-laws and us together to celebrate this holiday. My husband was out of town visiting my father-in-law, who was finishing up his last year of work before retirement, and my mother-in-law was in China caring for her sister, who was undergoing chemotherapy for colon cancer.

This weekend my husband will fly my father-in-law back for a short visit. Though my mother-in-law will not be able to join us, we will celebrate being together for a few short days.

And we might even eat yuanxiao!

How do you and your family celebrate “togetherness” during Lantern Festival?