It used to be fun looking forward to chinese new year, from the excitement of new clothes, the meeting of relatives, getting ang pao playing with the distant cousins (in my case i have to call them aunts and uncles), the getting together to help out in the kitchen with making of the tarts and kuehs. Sadly as i grew older, the buying of new clothes don't really excite me very much, because i have such fussy tastes for clothes that it's such a chore to go shopping with a goal of bringing home clothes. Otherwise i'll never come home with clothes in time for CNY. I think for me the greatest contributor in the yearly dissipation of the CNY mood is when my great grandma passed away and my grandma stopped making those chinese new year goodies. I remember having so much fun with the prawn rolls, pineapple tarts, with all my aunts in the kitchen. To find another activity to generate that kind of warmth and togetherness is going to be quite hard. Then when chinese new year is finally here, you get to enjoy the fruits of your labour as u place those melt in your mouth tarts and delicious and crunchy prawn rolls into your mouth and savour it. Especially when my prawn rolls were very distinct from the ones my grandma and aunts made. Everyone had their own style, and by one look you could tell whose hands made them. All those washed down with soft drinks(a luxury due to my frequent coughs throughout the year), everything was just pure happiness.

Maybe it was the fact that those things were what i rarely had throughout the year and the chance to experience all that after waiting for a year, the excitement built up. Now, the CNY goodies are just biscuits and tarts made by others, some taste so bland that it's such a waste of money. I buy new clothes pretty often too, and meeting the relatives have now become quite a chore. Of course there are some grandaunts and granduncles whom i enjoy visiting, but there are some that my presence does not seem to leave an impression. Of course when you're not there they'll gossip amongst themselves, why this rude girl hasn't come around visiting. Oh well. Or maybe we all just grow up and that's all there is to it. Like Santa Claus and whatever not. Maybe only kids have the innocence to enjoy such festivities with boundless energies and excitement.