Happy Korean Lunar New Year! 2013 Year of the Snake

Happy Lunar New Year! Welcome Year of the Snake! I'm a day late on this post. Had it all ready to go, but hey, we were celebrating and I forgot to put it up! (The video really tells you lots of great details about Seollal, so be sure to watch.)

This is Year of the Snake. Snakes don't really have a great connotation for most folks, but in this context, they are associated with long life, fortune and safety. Perhaps it's because of the snake's ability to renew itself by shedding it's skin, that snake years are said to bring fertility, renewal and prosperity.

We could totally do with some renewal and prosperity around here. Bring it on, Snake!

Like many of the Korean holidays, this one centers around family and food. We celebrated with our adoption family, FTKA, a few weeks ago at their annual New Years event. It featured singing, Tae Kwon Do exhibitions, awesome traditional food, and of course, friends. Hard to believe we've been with this group for three years now! It was also a time to celebrate and meet several children who have just come home, and support others who are still waiting.

As for our home celebration, I had to work on Sunday so we didn't get crazy with things. But we did whip up some Jap Chae, spend lots of time together, and even taught Little Man to 'sebae', or do a formal bow. We gave him some small change (New Years money) as is the tradition. Maybe next year he'll really understand what's going on? Here's a good site to learn the male/female ways of performing a sebae.

Overall, I think we can do more for this holiday. I feel like we aren't really incorporating as much Korean heritage as I'd like to. I have to be honest that at this point it's a big challenge for us, but hopefully we can keep working at it to continue and build more of our own traditions for the future. Ideas for next year might be getting up early to watch the sun rise together (although this really doesn't appeal to me at all because he's usually up so darned early anyway), having a nice big breakfast together (more likely to happen) and playing a few of the traditional games (totally do-able).