Four Ways to Celebrate Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year! The New Year brings a time of togetherness in more ways than one and allows us to cherish what’s truly important in life. The beauty of celebrating Chinese New Year as a family is that it’s something that your children will hold close to them forever, and there are endless ways to create new traditions.

I encourage you to watch this extremely sweet and moving video, made by Panda Express and their longtime beverage partner, PepsiCo, where Z meets her adoptive family and grows up taking the memories she makes with her through her life. It’s very touching and goes to show how any simple tradition can make a lifetime of memories for your family.

Here are four ways you can implement family traditions to celebrate:

1. Learn about the holiday and its history. Whether it be through visiting a local Panda Express restaurant, reading stories and tales together or making Chinese New Year crafts; you can spend some quality time together to learn about where the holiday truly comes from and its importance. Here you can find lots of fun worksheets, coloring pages and craft ideas for your family, and even download a fun card game here!

2. Head to your local Panda Express to enjoy authentic cuisine. Or order in and eat at home! For a limited time, Panda Express is including celebration kits within their entrees to enjoy. You can also add to the experience by wearing red clothing to celebrate!

3.Create traditions for every Chinese New Year. Just as in the Meet Z video, you and your family can create new traditions to celebrate whether you’re near or far, each and every year. Z and her family celebrate with their favorite Chinese cuisine; even when she was away at school. Trying a new recipe or giving red envelopes can turn into memorable tradition that no one wants to miss.

4. Participate in New Year Wish event(s) The Lantern Festival is one of the largest and most exciting annual events during Chinese New Year festivities. This is the perfect time to make some wishes you have for the New Year, as a family. Not only will this be a great experience for all ages; it’s a beautiful sight to see as well. If you can’t make it to the festival, you can create your own wish lanterns at home and send them off wherever you’d like. This is a tradition that is said to bring good luck.

With more than 1,900 locations throughout the United States, Panda Express does a wonderful job of encouraging families to celebrate the New Year. We had so much fun taking our family to Panda Express – it was nothing short of exciting and a great learning experience. To all of those that celebrate, Happy Chinese New Year!