Gong Hey Fat Choy (That's Happy New Year in Cantonese)

We made it to Chinatown for the Firecracker Festival (at least for the dragons tail end of it. LOL).  It was a freezing cold day (as it often is for Chinese New Year) and we didn't hurry to make it outside since we walked there.  It turned out to be pretty good timing since we had just the right amount of time to check out the festivities like traditional Chinese dancers, spin the wheel freebies, firecrackering, and posing with Father Chinese New Year (which is what I call the man in fancy traditional garb holding a good luck in the new year sign).

Check out the assortment of "firecrackers."  Twist these suckers and out pops confetti with a bang and a mess.  Do NOT do this at home.  (I'm speaking from experience as one year that actually happened!!)

Getting this thing to pop is much easier than it looks.  You have to twist it at the base, but we all struggled to get it to explode.  I bought each of my kids their own.  They cost $3 each, there were smaller and bigger ones with prices to match.

It was incredibly neat and tidy for such a messy event.  They had receptacles for the spent firecracker tubes.

Afterwards we celebrated with yummy Chinese food at our fav restaurant and followed that up with some pastries at a nearby Chinese bakery.  From the top right:  red bean swirl, cake, taro bun, and croissant.  (Yes, I know a croissant is not traditionally Chinese but my son really wanted it, so I guess there are French Chinese folks.  Ha!  And, it tasted good too.)

This concludes the first part of our super packed fun day!